Before the 13th century, Europeans were extremely backward in mathematics. They followed Roman numerals. There was no concept of 0 and negative numbers in Roman mathematics. They used seven Roman letters as numbers, namely I (1), X (10), C (100), M (1000), V (5), L (50), D (500).

Before the 13th century, Europeans were extremely backward in mathematics. They followed the Roman numeral . There was no concept of 0 and negative numbers in Roman mathematics. They used seven Roman letters as numbers, namely Ⅰ(1), X(10), C(100), M(1000), V(5), L(50), D(500)

If you want to represent 12, it is X, 10 plus 1 plus 1. This mathematical system is very unfavorable to calculate multiplication and division, so it was possible to calculate the result of multiplying three digits by three digits in Europe at that time that time.

13th century, India's bit value method, Arabic numeric symbols, as well as Middle East algebraic were successively introduced to Europe by Arab . After that, Europe's mathematical level improved by leaps and bounds, and in the 16th century, it was the first to enter the stage of establishing mathematical models.

In fact, the real establishment of a modern scientific system is marked by the introduction of mathematical models into scientific research. For example, Lavoisier is known as the father of modern chemistry. His contribution is to discover the law of conservation of mass and introduce algebra into chemical calculations. Since then, chemistry is truly different from alchemy.

The beginning of modern physics began with the establishment of classical mechanics systems, also because Newton introduced calculus into mechanics.

But ironically, the real motivation for Europeans to conduct more in-depth research on mathematics was religious reasons, when the church believed that the study of astronomy and mathematics could help people have a better conversation with God.

A long time ago, scientists believed that science was never invented by humans. It was a law that had existed in the universe. It was there, and you just discovered it. Studying science is a process of verifying the truth of the universe and a process of dialogue with God.

Many great scientists we are familiar with are devout believers of God themselves, such as the father of Western mathematics, , Pythagoras, said; mysterious mathematics is a religious belief, and we do mathematics as a way to communicate with God. AC inventor Tesla said: My inventions are all because of God’s enlightenment.

Newton's scientific research was called natural philosophy at the time, but it was actually part of theology. After Newton's thirty years old, his main energy was to study the book of revelation and concluded that the end of the world would happen between 2016 and 2060.

Note 1 bit value method is today's decimal system. Although ancient Chinese mathematics is not symbolized, it is also decimal.

Note 2 Turkic scholar Hua Lazimi founded algebra, and at that time he already had the concepts of system of equations, shift terms, etymization , quadratic equations, etc. Now the term " algorithm " in English is Hua Lazimi. It is worth mentioning whether Arabic or the source of modern chemistry, experimental equipment such as decanters, funnels, flat bottom evaporation dishes, and many experimental methods such as distillation, sublimation, filtration and crystallization come from the Arab world.

People in Newton's era have observed some laws of planetary motion, such as planets moving along elliptical trajectories, and Galileo has discovered the law of uniform acceleration of the sphere, both "when ignoring air resistance, the falling speed of the light and heavy iron balls are the same."

In this context, scientists all want to find the law of motion behind objects.

1619 Kepler's Law of Planetary Motion was published. In 1673 Huygens centripetal force formula was released. Based on the above two discoveries, Newton used calculus and analytical geometry as tools to summarize the law of universal gravitation in a high-level way. It should be said that it was the essence of science of all mankind and finally blossomed and bear fruit here in Newton over time.

In Newton's own words, I see further, just because I stand on the shoulders of a giant and have nothing to do with the apples falling from the apple tree.

In fact, before Newton, the Frenchman who founded the Cartesian coordinate system unified algebra and geometry Descartesian used mathematical methods to uniformly explain the laws of motion of all things and proposed his own vortex theory. Newton studied Descartes' theory very deeply and highly praised.

In addition, Newton's law of universal gravitation also involves two cases in the history of science.

1, who invented calculus?

The undeniable historical fact is that in 1684, German mathematician Leibniz published a calculus paper, and Newton's calculus concept was proposed in the 1687 "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy " published, which was completely three years later than Leibniz , but the subtle thing is that when it comes to calculus, it becomes Newton-Lebniz mathematics, who made Newton the great god of the Royal Academy of Sciences in the UK.

Another case, the contribution of Hook to gravity, which invented the law of spring.

Hooker and Newton once argued about gravity in their communications. If an object is thrown flat on an infinitely high tower and the object is not affected by resistance, what is the motion trajectory of the object? Newton believed that gravity is a constant that does not change with distance. The movement trajectory of the object should be an spiral line . Hook hypothetically proposed that gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. The flat-pitched object does not lose any energy. It should circumvent the earth in an elliptical orbit and return to its original place.

It is obvious that Hook is right. His view is almost the prototype of gravity, but because Hook's math is not good, gravity was eventually discovered by Newton.

I said this not to deny Newton's greatness, but to say that there is no such thing as the world without a cow, and human beings will be like a long night. If Newton was born in the 16th century, he would not be able to study the Three Newton's laws, because human science has not accumulated enough, and there is no soil for the birth of Newton's laws. Even if there is no Newton in the 18th century, there will definitely be Sheep coming out to summarize the universal gravitation, because all the necessary conditions for the law of universal gravitation are already met.

If you don’t believe it, then I have to ask, why did so many great scientists appear in the 18th century, which can be said to be the shining of human stars, but no one can propose the theory of relativity. Instead, we have to wait until the 19th century that was proposed by Einstein ? Isn’t it OK to be a genius like Newton who is not born? The answer is simple, because the theory of relativity is proved by Riemann geometry based on Newtonian classical mechanics and Maxwell classical electromagnetics . There is no egg without a chicken.

Today's Science Building is first laid and then laid layer by layer. There is no such thing as building a certain layer of sky towers and then laying the foundation down.