The History of Motion Laws

To understand the origin of Newton's first law of motion, we have to go explore a

concept called Inertia developed by Sir Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Before Sir Galileo
developed the concept of Inertia, people believed that there was something inside every
object in motion that pushes it. And if this thing that pushes the object stops pushing,
the object will stop.
For example, if we push a chair across a room, it seems that the push is
necessary to sustain the velocity of the chair. If we stop pushing, the chair stops
moving. But Sir Galileo believed that when the push on the chair is taken away, the
chair should continue to move along without any assistance. The friction force is then
the force that will prevent the chair from continuing its motion.
1) To what extent have you experienced this idea of inertia before?
2) To what extent was Sir Galileos idea invented or discovered?
One way to illustrate this theory, which states that objects stop moving due a
force called force of friction, is by taking an example from Galileo's experiment with
marbles. Sir Galileo set up an experiment using a wooden track for marbles in a U
shape, and rolled the marbles down the track.
After placing a marble at a height on one side, Galileo observed that, when
released, the marble rolled down the that side of the U and up the opposite side
slightly to a point just below the height that the marble was released at. When he
sanded the U to be smoother, he noted that the marble rolled up the opposite plane
very close to original height.

1) What was Galileos purpose in conducting up this experiment?

2) To what extent do you think Galileo followed a step-by-step procedure when he

explored these ideas about motion?
This experiment led Galileo to conclude that the difference between the marble's
initial and final heights could be explained by a force called friction. He then
summarized that without that force of friction, the marble would reach its original height
exactly.
Continuing in his experiments, Galileo explored the scenario that instead of using
a U shaped track, he would remove the up slope. Meaning the marble would roll down
the track and roll along a flat track, rather than back up a slope.

1) What would you expect the marble to do? Why?

2) Before Galileo, people believed the idea that there is something inside moving
objects that push it along, and the objects stop when the pushing stops. To what
extent do you think that people would throw out their old beliefs, and accept
Galileos new idea if he had not done an experiment?

Later on, Isaac Newton (1643-1727) built on Galileo's concept of Inertia to

include all objects. All objects resist changes to their state of motion. This means that
they all have inertia. This concept led Isaac Newton to add to our understanding of
inertia, the idea that an object's tendency to resist changes in its state depends upon its
mass.
It became a general rule that Inertia depends then on the mass of the object
alone. The more mass an object has, the greater it tends to resist changes in its
motion.
In general, we can conclude that Isaac Newton's first law of motion relies on
Galileo's thoughts about motion. Meaning that a force is not needed to keep an object
moving; the more mass an object has, the more inertia it has-- the more tendency it has

to resist changes in its state of motion. We can also conclude that Sir Isaac Newton's
first law of motion is the same as Galileo's explanation of inertia.
1. To what extent does this idea apply to objects not moving?
2. After reading this story of the development of Newtons First Law of Motion, what
do you think about changing ideas in science?
3. Isaac Newtons idea that objects in motion will continue to stay in motion forever,
requires that the object is not affected by friction. The only frictionless
environment that we know of is outer space. How is it beneficial for us to know
this if we will probably never experience frictionless environments?