Editing History of physics (section)

===Other achievements===
Other branches of physics also received attention during the period of the Scientific Revolution. [[William Gilbert (astronomer)|William Gilbert]], court physician to [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]], described how the earth itself behaves like a giant magnet. [[Robert Boyle]] (1627–1691) studied the behavior of gases enclosed in a chamber and formulated the [[Boyle's law|gas law named for him]]; he also contributed to physiology and to the founding of modern chemistry.

Another factor in the Scientific Revolution was the rise of learned societies and academies in various countries. The earliest of these were in Italy and Germany and were short-lived. More influential were the [[Royal Society of England]] (1660) and the [[Academy of Sciences (France)|Academy of Sciences in France]] (1666). The former was a private institution in London and included [[John Wallis]], [[William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker|William Brouncker]], [[Thomas Sydenham]], [[John Mayow]], and [[Christopher Wren]] (who contributed not only to architecture but also to astronomy and anatomy); the latter, in Paris, was a government institution and included as a foreign member the Dutchman Huygens. In the 18th century, important royal academies were established at Berlin (1700) and at St. Petersburg (1724). The societies and academies provided the principal opportunities for the publication and discussion of scientific results during and after the scientific revolution. In 1690, [[James Bernoulli]] showed that the [[cycloid]] is the solution to the tautochrone problem; and the following year, in 1691, [[Johann Bernoulli]] showed that a chain freely suspended from two points will form a [[catenary]], the curve with the lowest possible [[center of gravity]] available to any chain hung between two fixed points. He then showed, in 1696, that the cycloid is the solution to the [[brachistochrone]] problem.

====Early thermodynamics====
A precursor of the engine was designed by the German scientist [[Otto von Guericke]] who, in 1650, designed and built the world's first [[vacuum pump]] to create a [[vacuum]] as demonstrated in the [[Magdeburg hemispheres]] experiment. He was driven to make a vacuum to disprove Aristotle's long-held supposition that [[Horror vacui (physics)|'Nature abhors a vacuum']]. Shortly thereafter, Irish physicist and chemist Boyle had learned of Guericke's designs and in 1656, in coordination with English scientist [[Robert Hooke]], built an air pump. Using this pump, Boyle and Hooke noticed the pressure-volume correlation for a gas: ''PV'' = ''k'', where ''P'' is [[pressure]], ''V'' is [[volume]] and ''k'' is a constant: this relationship is known as [[Boyle's law]]. In that time, air was assumed to be a system of motionless particles, and not interpreted as a system of moving molecules. The concept of thermal motion came two centuries later. Therefore, Boyle's publication in 1660 speaks about a mechanical concept: the air spring.<ref>New Experiments physico-mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects (1660). [http://www.imss.fi.it/vuoto/eboyle.html]</ref> Later, after the invention of the thermometer, the property temperature could be quantified. This tool gave [[Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac]] the opportunity to derive [[Gay-Lussac's law|his law]], which led shortly later to the [[ideal gas law]]. But, already before the establishment of the ideal gas law, an associate of Boyle's named [[Denis Papin]] built in 1679 a bone digester, which is a closed vessel with a tightly fitting lid that confines steam until a high pressure is generated.

Later designs implemented a steam release valve to keep the machine from exploding. By watching the valve rhythmically move up and down, Papin conceived of the idea of a piston and cylinder engine. He did not however follow through with his design. Nevertheless, in 1697, based on Papin's designs, engineer [[Thomas Savery]] built the first engine. Although these early engines were crude and inefficient, they attracted the attention of the leading scientists of the time. Hence, prior to 1698 and the invention of the [[steam engine|Savery Engine]], horses were used to power pulleys, attached to buckets, which lifted water out of flooded salt mines in England. In the years to follow, more variations of steam engines were built, such as the [[Newcomen steam engine|Newcomen Engine]], and later the [[Watt steam engine|Watt Engine]]. In time, these early engines would replace horses. Thus, each engine began to be associated with a certain amount of "horse power" depending upon how many horses it had replaced. The main problem with these first engines was that they were slow and clumsy, converting less than 2% of the input [[fuel]] into useful work. In other words, large quantities of coal (or wood) had to be burned to yield a small fraction of work output; the need for a new science of engine [[dynamics (mechanics)|dynamics]] was born.

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