From special problems and ad-hoc methods to general theory

Our outline of the development of mechanics has proceeded as if we could tell a story with a single line of development. But our account up to now has been, as we shall see, somewhat misleading. Even prior to the great Newtonian synthesis, other approaches to the solution of the problems of dynamics were simultaneously being explored. Most of these approaches remained fragmentary and partial until the eighteenth century. For that reason we have neglected them, reserving discussion of them until the more extended discussion of how those programs became solidified, generalized and systematized in the later history of dynamics.

At this point, however, it becomes impossible to deal with matters in a strictly chronological manner. In the years following the publication of Newton's Principia dynamics followed a number of distinct, although deeply related, patterns of development. It will be essential to deal with each of these in turn, forcing us to go over the same temporal period from several perspectives. This chapter is preliminary to those that follow. In it I will try to lay out something of the problem situation facing the great developers of mechanics and outline the basic structure of the multiple approaches suggested to deal with that array of problems. We may then proceed to explore the several approaches in detail one at a time.