For 200 years, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, Newtonian mechanics reigned supreme. By the late nineteenth century, the few simple laws of Newtonian physics could explain, with uncanny accuracy, most of the disparate phenomena of the natural world. Everything in the heavens and on Earth appeared to obey the laws, and the mastery of these laws was bringing mankind the mastery of the environment. These laws dominated the way both scientists and laypersons thought. Newtonian mechanics has a deterministic framework for the cosmos and this was deeply satisfying to the Judeo-Christian culture of Western Europe. There were those who questioned Newton's assumptions of absolute space and time, independent of man, but anyone doubting the validity of the laws of motion or gravitation was not taken seriously by the scientific community.

Newton had applied his theory of gravitation to two-body systems, such as the Sun and a planet. In the eighteenth century various attempts were made to extend it to three gravitating bodies. In 1682 Halley had claimed that the comet then observed in the sky had also appeared in 1531 and 1607; given, then, that the period of the comet was about 75 years, he predicted that it would reappear in 1758. Months before its appearance, the French mathematician Alexis Clairaut used tedious and brute-force mathematics to calculate the gravitational perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn on the otherwise elliptical orbit of Comet Halley.