"In mechanics the future path of a moving body can be predicted and its past disclosed if its present condition and the forces acting upon it are known. Thus, for example, the future paths of all planets can be forseen. The active forces are Newton's gravitational forces depending on the distance alone. The great results of clasical mechanics suggest that the mechanical view can be consistantly applied to all branches of physics, that all phenomena can be explained by the action of forces representing either attraction or repulsion, depending only upon distance and acting between unchangable particles.

"In the kinetic theory of matter we see how this view, arising from mechanical problems, embracing the phenomena of heat and how it leads to a successful picture of the structure of matter." -Albert Einstein