Andrew Gordon describes the "whirl", the first electrostatic reaction motor, and "electric chimes", the first instance of the application of what comes to be called electric convection, in his Versuch einer Erklarung der Electricitat.[1]
Ruđer Bošković publishes De Viribus Vivis in which he tries to find a middle way between Newton's gravitational theory and Leibniz's monadology, developing a concept of "impenetrability" as a property of hard bodies which explains their behavior in terms of force rather than matter.[2]