Newton's laws of motion Newton in his "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687. Newton used them to explain and investigate the motion of many physical objects and systems. For example, in the third volume of the text, Newton showed that these laws of motion, combined with his law of universal gravitation, explained Kepler's laws of planetary motion. A fourth law is often also described in the bibliography, which states that forces add up like vectors, that is, that forces obey the principle of superposition. Newton's laws are applied to objects which are idealised as single point masses,
Kepler's laws of planetary motion Moon and Earth the acceleration of the Moon becomes So in this approximation the Moon moves around the Earth according to Kepler's laws. In the three-body case the accelerations are These accelerations are not those of Kepler orbits, and the three-body problem is complicated. But Keplerian approximation is the basis for perturbation calculations. See Lunar theory. Kepler used his two first laws to compute the position of a planet as a function of time. His method involves the solution of a transcendental equation called Kepler's equation. The procedure for calculating the heliocentric polar coordinates ("r","θ") of a planet as a