Mechanics — a technique so powerful, it is studied only by the strong, the ones worthy enough to grasp the true nature of motion itself. The ability to understand how things move, how a car races down the street, how a punch flies toward your face and you tilt your head just in time to evade it, how every fiber of your body obeys the sacred art of motion — this ability is inherited by all, but truly mastered only by the few.
Throughout history, one group stood tall as the first to treat this technique with the seriousness it deserved: the Greeks. More than two thousand years ago, the Greeks represented a tremendous, history-shaping step toward what we now call modern science. They were, without doubt, the strongest of their time. Yet even with all their strength, they were no match for us modern warriors of knowledge. Their ideas, though mighty for their era, were flawed, imperfect, and merely a stepping stone. Today, we are taught science refined to the sharpest edge — the science of the strongest.
The true rise and unstoppable development of mechanics as we know it today began with the work of two titans: Galileo (1564–1642) and Newton (1642–1727). Galileo, a master of observation and fearless challenger of the old world, laid the foundation. But it was Newton who ascended to the highest throne, forging three mighty techniques known as the Laws of Motion — laws so powerful that they command the universe itself.
At the dawn of time, space, and history — more specifically, in the 18th and 19th centuries — two new systems of mechanical power arose, each a force to be reckoned with. They were named after the ones who mastered them: the French mathematician and astronomer Lagrange (1736–1813), and the Irish mathematician Hamilton (1805–1865). Thus were born the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of mechanics. These two mighty systems stand toe-to-toe with the strength of Newton's original laws, offering dramatically simpler solutions to some of the universe's most challenging problems. Yet even so, they do not dethrone Newton — they elevate his legacy, providing new paths forward, igniting modern developments in physics and beyond.
This combined trio — Newtonian, Lagrangian, and Hamiltonian mechanics — forms the indomitable power system known as Classical Mechanics.
It is the art of motion, complete and supreme — at least, it was.
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, Classical Mechanics reigned as the ultimate champion, the only known way to describe all motion across the universe. But the world, in all its chaos and mystery, was not bound forever by these early laws. Between the years 1905 and 1925, a new truth became undeniable: Classical Mechanics could not correctly describe objects moving at speeds near that of light — not even close — nor could it command the bizarre, unpredictable world of the microscopic, where particles dance with wild freedom inside atoms and molecules.
With that realization, two new techniques were forged in the fires of human genius:
Relativistic Mechanics — a technique wielded only by the fastest of the fast, the strongest of the strong, to describe motion at speeds approaching the ultimate speed limit: the speed of light itself.
Quantum Mechanics — a technique so subtle, so powerful, that only the truly enlightened, the truly fearless, can master its ways to describe the weird, probabilistic motion of microscopic particles.
Even though Classical Mechanics was eventually surpassed by the newer, more extreme forms of mechanics, it remains the unshakable first power.
Without it, nothing else would have existed. Without it, there would be no Relativity. No Quantum Theory. No modern physics.
Classical Mechanics is the origin.
The first true art of motion.
The one that started it all.
The First Power.