Keep in mind that these ideas were not quite the same as the modern concepts of linear and angular
momentum, but they certainly were suggestive of those later ideas. An even more important contribution
of the Merton scholars was the first effort to apply mathematical formulae and graphs to express ideas
about motion, and the realization that the same underlying theory might explain both Earthly and celestial
motion. Still, it would take another two or three centuries for the modern theory of gravity to finally
emerge