Sir Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was born in 1642 in a manor house in

Lincolnshire, England. His father had died two months before
his birth. When Isaac was three his mother remarried, and
Isaac remained with his grandmother. He was not interested
in the family farm, so he was sent to Cambridge University
to study.

Isaac was born just a short time after the death

of Galileo , one of the greatest scientists of all time.
Galileo had proved that the planets revolve around the sun,
not the earth as people thought at the time. Isaac Newton
was very interested in the discoveries of Galileo and others.
Isaac thought the universe worked like a machine and that a few simple laws
governed it. Like Galileo, he realized that mathematics was the way to explain and
prove those laws. Isaac Newton was one of the world’s great scientists because he
took his ideas, and the ideas of earlier scientists, and combined them into a unified
picture of how the universe works.

Isaac Newton explained the workings of the universe through mathematics. He

formulated laws of motion and gravitation. These laws are math formulas that
explain how objects move when a force acts on them. Isaac published his most
famous book, Principia, in 1687 while he was a mathematics professor at Trinity
College, Cambridge. In the Principia, Isaac explained three basic laws that govern
the way objects move. He then described his idea, or theory, about gravity. Gravity
is the force that causes things to fall down. If a pencil falls off a desk, it will land on
the floor, not the ceiling. In his book Isaac also used his laws to show that the
planets revolve around the suns in orbits that are oval, not round.

Isaac Newton used three laws to explain the way objects move. They are often call
Newton’s Laws. The First Law states that an object that is not being pushed or pulled
by some force will stay still, or will keep moving in a straight line at a steady speed.
It is easy to understand that a bike will not move unless something pushes or pulls
it. It is harder to understand that an object will continue to move without help. Think
of the bike again. If someone is riding a bike and jumps off before the bike is
stopped what happens? The bike continues on until it falls over. The tendency of an
object to remain still, or keep moving in a straight line at a steady speed is called
inertia.

The Second Law explains how a force acts on an object. An object accelerates in the
direction the force is moving it. If someone gets on a bike and pushes the pedals
forward the bike will begin to move. If someone gives the bike a push from behind,
the bike will speed up. If the rider pushes back on the pedals the bike will slow
down. If the rider turns the handlebars, the bike will change direction.
The Third Law states that if an object is pushed or pulled, it will push or pull equally
in the opposite direction. If someone lifts a heavy box, they use force to push it up.
The box is heavy because it is producing an equal force downward on the lifter’s
arms. The weight is transferred through the lifter’s legs to the floor. The floor
presses upward with an equal force. If the floor pushed back with less force, the
person lifting the box would fall through the floor. If it pushed back with more force
the lifter would fly into the air.

When most people think of Isaac Newton, they think of him sitting under an apple
tree observing an apple fall to the ground. When he saw the apple fall, Newton
began to think about a specific kind of motion—gravity. Newton understood that
gravity was the force of attraction between two objects. He also understood that an
object with more matter –mass- exerted the greater force, or pulled smaller object
toward it. That meant that the large mass of the earth pulled objects toward it. That
is why the apple fell down instead of up, and why people don’t float in the air.

Isaac Newton thought about gravity and the apple. He thought that maybe gravity
was not just limited to the earth and the objects on it. What if gravity extended to
the moon and beyond? Isaac calculated the force needed to keep the moon moving
around the earth. Then he compared it with the force the made the apple fall
downward. After allowing for the fact that the moon is much farther from the earth,
and has a much greater mass, he discovered that the forces were the same. The
moon in held in an orbit around earth by the pull of earth’s gravity.

Isaac Newton’s calculations changed the way people understood the universe. No
one had been able to explain why the planets stayed in their orbits. What held them
up? Less that 50 years before Isaac Newton was born it was thought that the planets
were held in place by an invisible shield. Isaac proved that they were held in place by
the sun’s gravity. He also showed that the force of gravity was affected by distance
and by mass. He was not the first to understand that the orbit of a planet was not
circular, but more elongated, like an oval. What he did was to explain how it worked.

Newton's Three Laws and Rockets

Details on Issac Newton's Three Laws as appiled to rocketry.
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton was an English scientist (1642 - 1727) who invented the reflecting
telescope in 1668.
Sir Isaac Newton
Newton always considered himself a natural philosopher, and the central strand of
his scientific development consisted of his speculations on the nature of physical
reality, speculations that led him away from the reigning mechanical philosophy and
to a major modification of it that asserted the existence of forces acting at a
distance.
Isaac Newton
Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost
scientific intellects of all time.
On Ye Shoulders of Giants
His contribution to establishing science and the scientific method as providing the
best description of the material world, and the awe in which he was held by his
contemporaries, were neatly encapsulated early in the eighteenth century by the
poet Alexander Pope, with his famous couplet Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in
night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light

In the sixteenth century, Copernicus suggested that

Earth and other planets orbited the Sun, but his model
contained no physics. It did not say why the planets
should orbit the Sun. Galilao was censured by the
Catholic Church and forced to recant his belief in the
Copernican model. He then realized that to ultimately
win the Copernican model needed a physical basis.
Galileo therefore started to quietly develop the new
physics needed to explain planetary motions. Isaac
Newton, who was born the year Galileo died, built on the
foundation laid by Galileo. The resulting edifice,
Newton's laws, was a grand synthesis that for the first
time explained motions both on Earth and in the
heavens with a unified set of laws.
The Three Laws of Motion
First law of motion: An object at rest will remain at rest,
and an object in motion will remain in motion, at a
constant velocity unless or until outside forces act upon
it.
Second law of motion: The net force acting upon an
object is a product of its mass multiplied by its
acceleration.
Third law of motion: When one object exerts a force on
another, the second object exerts on the first a force
equal in magnitude but opposite in direction.

Read
more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/History_of_newton's_l
aw_of_motion#ixzz1B51O0hrv
In the sixteenth century, Copernicus suggested that
Earth and other planets orbited the Sun, but his model
contained no physics. It did not say why the planets
should orbit the Sun. Galilao was censured by the
Catholic Church and forced to recant his belief in the
Copernican model. He then realized that to ultimately
win the Copernican model needed a physical basis.
Galileo therefore started to quietly develop the new
physics needed to explain planetary motions. Isaac
Newton, who was born the year Galileo died, built on the
foundation laid by Galileo. The resulting edifice,
Newton's laws, was a grand synthesis that for the first
time explained motions both on Earth and in the
heavens with a unified set of laws.
The Three Laws of Motion
First law of motion: An object at rest will remain at rest,
and an object in motion will remain in motion, at a
constant velocity unless or until outside forces act upon
it.
Second law of motion: The net force acting upon an
object is a product of its mass multiplied by its
acceleration.
Third law of motion: When one object exerts a force on
another, the second object exerts on the first a force
equal in magnitude but opposite in direction.

Read
more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/History_of_newton's_l
aw_of_motion#ixzz1B51O0hrv
http://physics.learnhub.com/lesson/16618-newton-laws-of-motion
http://physics.learnhub.com/lesson/16618-newton-laws-of-motion

First law
 There exists a set of inertial reference frames relative to
which all particles with no net force acting on them will
move without change in their velocity. This law is often
simplified as "A body persists in a state of rest or of uniform
motion unless acted upon by an external force." Newton's
first law is often referred to as the law of inertia.
Second law
Observed from an inertial reference frame, the net force on
a particle is equal to the time rate of change of its linear
momentum: F = d(mv)/dt. Since by definition the mass of a
particle is constant, this law is often stated as, "Force
equals mass times acceleration (F = ma): the net force on
an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its
acceleration."
Third law
Whenever a particle A exerts a force on another
particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the
same magnitude in the opposite direction. The strong form
of the law further postulates that these two forces act along
the same line. This law is often simplified into the sentence,
"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
In the given interpretation mass, acceleration, momentum, and
(most importantly) force are assumed to be externally defined
quantities. This is the most common, but not the only
interpretation: one can consider the laws to be a definition of
these quantities.

Some authors interpret the first law as defining what an inertial

reference frame is; from this point of view, the second law only
holds when the observation is made from an inertial reference
frame, and therefore the first law cannot be proved as a special
case of the second. Other authors do treat the first law as a
corollary of the second.[3] The explicit concept of an inertial
frame of reference was not developed until long after Newton's
death.
At speeds approaching the speed of light the effects of special
relativity must be taken into account.[note 2]
Newton's first law
Lex I: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel
movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus
impressis cogitur statum illum mutare. Every body persists
in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly
straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to
change its state by force impressed.[4]
Newton's first law is also called the law of inertia. It states that if
the vector sum of all forces (that is, the net force) acting on an
object is zero, then the acceleration of the object is zero and
its velocity is constant. Consequently:
• An object that is not moving will not move until a force
acts upon it.
• An object that is moving will not change its velocity until
a net force acts upon it.
The first point needs no comment, but the second seems to
violate everyday experience. For example, a hockey puck sliding
along ice does not move forever; rather, it slows and eventually
comes to a stop. According to Newton's first law, the puck comes
to a stop because of a net external force applied in the direction
opposite to its motion. This net external force is due to
a frictional force between the puck and the ice, as well as a
frictional force between the puck and the air. If the ice were
frictionless and the puck were traveling in a vacuum, the net
external force on the puck would be zero and it would travel with
constant velocity so long as its path were unobstructed.
Implicit in the discussion of Newton's first law is the concept of
an inertial reference frame, which for the purposes of
Newtonian mechanics is defined to be a reference frame in
which Newton's first law holds true.
There is a class of frames of reference (called inertial frames)
relative to which the motion of a particle not subject to forces is a
straight line.[5]
Newton placed the law of inertia first to establish frames of
reference for which the other laws are applicable.[5][6]To
understand why the laws are restricted to inertial frames,
consider a ball at rest inside an airplane on a runway. From the
perspective of an observer within the airplane (that is, from the
airplane's frame of reference) the ball will appear to move
backward as the plane accelerates forward. This motion appears
to contradict Newton's second law (F = ma), since, from the
point of view of the passengers, there appears to be no force
acting on the ball that would cause it to move. However,
Newton's first law does not apply: the stationary ball does not
remain stationary in the absence of external force. Thus the
reference frame of the airplane is not inertial, and Newton's
second law does not hold in the form F = ma.[note 3]
History of the first law
Newton's first law is a restatement of what Galileo had already
described and Newton gave credit to Galileo. It differs from
Aristotle's view that all objects have a natural place in the
universe. Aristotle believed that heavy objects like rocks wanted
to be at rest on the Earth and that light objects like smoke
wanted to be at rest in the sky and the stars wanted to remain in
the heavens. However, a key difference between Galileo's idea
and Aristotle's is that Galileo realized that force acting on a body
determines acceleration, not velocity. This insight leads to
Newton's First Law-no force means no acceleration, and hence
the body will maintain its velocity.
The law of inertia apparently occurred to several different natural
philosophers and scientists independently. The inertia of motion
was described in the 3rd century BC by the Chinese
philosopher Mo Tzu, and in the 11th century by the Muslim
scientists Alhazen[7] and Avicenna.[8] The 17th century
philosopher René Descartes also formulated the law, although
he did not perform any experiments to confirm it.
The first law was understood philosophically well before
Newton's publication of the law.[note 4]
Newton's second law
Newton's second law states that the force applied to a body
produces a proportional acceleration; the relationship between
the two is

where F is the force applied, m is the mass of the body, and a is

the body's acceleration. If the body is subject to multiple forces
at the same time, then the acceleration is proportional to
the vector sum (that is, the net force):
The second law can also be shown to relate the net force and
the momentum p of the body:
Therefore, Newton's second law also states that the net force is
equal to the time derivative of the body'smomentum:
Consistent with the first law, the time derivative of the
momentum is non-zero when the momentum changes direction,
even if there is no change in its magnitude (see time derivative).
The relationship also implies theconservation of momentum:
when the net force on the body is zero, the momentum of the
body is constant.
Both statements of the second law are valid only for constant-
mass systems,[9][10][11] since any mass that is gained or lost
by the system will cause a change in momentum that is not the
result of an external force. A different equation is necessary
for variable-mass systems.
Newton's second law requires modification if the effects
of special relativity are to be taken into account, since it is no
longer true that momentum is the product of inertial mass and
velocity.
Impulse
An impulse I occurs when a force F acts over an interval of time
Δt, and it is given by[12][13]
Since force is the time derivative of momentum, it follows that

This relation between impulse and momentum is closer to

Newton's wording of the second law.[14]
Impulse is a concept frequently used in the analysis of collisions
and impacts.[15]
Variable-mass systems
Variable-mass systems, like a rocket burning fuel and ejecting
spent gases, are not closed and cannot be directly treated by
making mass a function of time in the second law.[10] The
reasoning, given in An Introduction to Mechanics by Kleppner
and Kolenkow and other modern texts, is that Newton's second
law applies fundamentally to particles.[11] In classical
mechanics, particles by definition have constant mass. In case of
a well-defined system of particles, Newton's law can be
extended by summing over all the particles in the system:
where Fnet is the total external force on the system, M is the total
mass of the system, and acm is the acceleration of the center of
mass of the system.
Variable-mass systems like a rocket or a leaking bucket cannot
usually be treated as a system of particles, and thus Newton's
second law cannot be applied directly. Instead, the general
equation of motion for a body whose mass m varies with time by
either ejecting or accreting mass is obtained by rearranging the
second law and adding a term to account for the momentum
carried by mass entering or leaving the system:[9]
where u is the relative velocity of the escaping or incoming mass
with respect to the center of mass of the body. Under some
conventions, the quantity u dm/dt on the left-hand side is defined
as a force (the force exerted on the body by the changing mass,
such as rocket exhaust) and is included in the quantity F. Then,
by substituting the definition of acceleration, the equation
becomes
History of the second law
Newton's Latin wording for the second law is:

Lex II: Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici

impressae, et fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa
imprimitur.

This was translated quite closely in Motte's 1729 translation as:

LAW II: The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the

motive force impress'd; and is made in the direction of the right
line in which that force is impress'd.

According to modern ideas of how Newton was using his

terminology,[note 5] this is understood, in modern terms, as an
equivalent of:
The change of momentum of a body is proportional to
the impulse impressed on the body, and happens
along the straight line on which that impulse is
impressed.
Motte's 1729 translation of Newton's Latin continued with
Newton's commentary on the second law of motion, reading:

If a force generates a motion, a double force will generate

double the motion, a triple force triple the motion, whether that
force be impressed altogether and at once, or gradually and
successively. And this motion (being always directed the same
way with the generating force), if the body moved before, is
added to or subtracted from the former motion, according as
they directly conspire with or are directly contrary to each other;
or obliquely joined, when they are oblique, so as to produce a
new motion compounded from the determination of both.
The sense or senses in which Newton used his terminology, and
how he understood the second law and intended it to be
understood, have been extensively discussed by historians of
science, along with the relations between Newton's formulation
and modern formulations.[note 6]
Newton's third law: law of reciprocal
actions

Newton's third law. The skaters' forces on each other are equal
in magnitude, but act in opposite directions.
Lex III: Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse
reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo
semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi.
''To every action there is always an equal and opposite
reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are
always equal and are directed in opposite directions''.
A more direct translation than the one just given above is:

LAW III: To every action there is always opposed an equal

reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other
are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. - Whatever
draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that
other. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also
pressed by the stone. If a horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the
horse (if I may so say) will be equally drawn back towards the
stone: for the distended rope, by the same endeavour to relax or
unbend itself, will draw the horse as much towards the stone, as
it does the stone towards the horse, and will obstruct the
progress of the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a
body impinges upon another, and by its force changes the
motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of
the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own
motion, toward the contrary part. The changes made by these
actions are equal, not in the velocities but in the motions of the
bodies; that is to say, if the bodies are not hindered by any other
impediments. For, as the motions are equally changed, the
changes of the velocities made toward contrary parts are
reciprocally proportional to the bodies. This law takes place also
in attractions, as will be proved in the next scholium.[note 7]
In the above, as usual, motion is Newton's name for momentum,
hence his careful distinction between motion and velocity.
The Third Law means that all forces are interactions, and thus
that there is no such thing as a unidirectional force. If
body A exerts a force on body B, simultaneously, body B exerts
a force of the same magnitude body A, both forces acting along
the same line. As shown in the diagram opposite, the skaters'
forces on each other are equal in magnitude, but act in opposite
directions. Although the forces are equal, the accelerations are
not: the less massive skater will have a greater acceleration due
to Newton's second law. It is important to note that the action
and reaction act on different objects and do not cancel each
other out. The two forces in Newton's third law are of the same
type (e.g., if the road exerts a forward frictional force on an
accelerating car's tires, then it is also a frictional force that
Newton's third law predicts for the tires pushing backward on the
road).
Newton used the third law to derive the law of conservation of
momentum;[16] however from a deeper perspective,
conservation of momentum is the more fundamental idea
(derived via Noether's theorem from Galilean invariance), and
holds in cases where Newton's third law appears to fail, for
instance when force fields as well as particles carry momentum,
and in quantum mechanics.

Importance and range of

validity
Newton's laws were verified by experiment and observation for
over 200 years, and they are excellent approximations at the
scales and speeds of everyday life. Newton's laws of motion,
together with his law ofuniversal gravitation and the
mathematical techniques of calculus, provided for the first time a
unified quantitative explanation for a wide range of physical
phenomena.
These three laws hold to a good approximation for macroscopic
objects under everyday conditions. However, Newton's laws
(combined with Universal Gravitation and Classical
Electrodynamics) are inappropriate for use in certain
circumstances, most notably at very small scales, very high
speeds (in special relativity, the Lorentz factor must be
included in the expression for momentum along with rest
mass and velocity) or very strong gravitational fields. Therefore,
the laws cannot be used to explain phenomena such as
conduction of electricity in a semiconductor, optical properties of
substances, errors in non-relativistically corrected GPS systems
andsuperconductivity. Explanation of these phenomena
requires more sophisticated physical theory, includingGeneral
Relativity and Relativistic Quantum Mechanics.
In quantum mechanics concepts such as force, momentum,
and position are defined by linear operators that operate on
the quantum state; at speeds that are much lower than the
speed of light, Newton's laws are just as exact for these
operators as they are for classical objects. At speeds
comparable to the speed of light, the second law holds in the
original form F = dp/dt, which says that the force is the derivative
of the momentum of the object with respect to time, but some of
the newer versions of the second law (such as the constant
mass approximation above) do not hold at relativistic velocities.

Relationship to the
conservation laws
In modern physics, the laws
of conservation of momentum, energy, and angular
momentum are of more general validity than Newton's laws,
since they apply to both light and matter, and to both classical
and non-classical physics.
This can be stated simply, "Momentum, energy and angular
momentum cannot be created or destroyed."

Because force is the time derivative of momentum, the concept

of force is redundant and subordinate to the conservation of
momentum, and is not used in fundamental theories
(e.g. quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, general
relativity, etc.). The standard model explains in detail how the
three fundamental forces known as gauge forces originate out
of exchange by virtual particles. Other forces such
as gravity and fermionic degeneracy pressure also arise from
the momentum conservation. Indeed, the conservation of 4-
momentum in inertial motion via curved space-time results in
what we call gravitational force in general relativity theory.
Application of space derivative (which is a momentum
operator in quantum mechanics) to overlapping wave
functions of pair of fermions (particles with semi-integer spin)
results in shifts of maxima of compound wavefunction away from
each other, which is observable as "repulsion" of fermions.
Newton stated the third law within a world-view that assumed
instantaneous action at a distance between material particles.
However, he was prepared for philosophical criticism of
this action at a distance, and it was in this context that he
stated the famous phrase "I feign no hypotheses". In modern
physics, action at a distance has been completely eliminated,
except for subtle effects involving quantum entanglement.
However in modern engineering in all practical applications
involving the motion of vehicles and satellites, the concept of
action at a distance is used extensively.
Conservation of energy was discovered nearly two centuries
after Newton's lifetime, the long delay occurring because of the
difficulty in understanding the role of microscopic and invisible
forms of energy such as heat and infra-red light.

Introduction
Inertia is experienced by everyone when, for
example, we move, turn a corner, spin on a piano
stool, or throw a stone. To produce an acceleration
of massive objects by applying a moving force,
energy is required. But what happens to the
energy? The mechanism of this energy transfer has
been elusive. Both Galileo and Newton commented
on this mysterious fact. Newton recognized that the
distant planets-stars were involved but he could not
understand how. He wrote:
Anyone who believes that energy can travel
instantly to the planets and back is a fool.
The physical origin of inertia could not be known
without the introduction of the quantum Wave
Structure of Matter (WSM) that replaces the ancient
notion of matter as discrete “particles”. They do
not exist. This is because inertia and other
phenomena, especially gravity and spin, are
entirely quantum wave behavior. Waves and
theirquantum space medium is the key to
explaining their origins (See Wolff, 1995).
The origin lies in the behavior of the quantum
space that is the medium of energy transfer.
Understanding inertia begins with the wave
structure of the electron, involves the philosophy of
Ernst Mach, and requires a calculation of the entire
Hubble Universe. The calculation of inertia below
will predict Einstein’s General Relativity – in a
simple form that everyone can understand (See
Wolff, 1990).

1. The paradox of Inertia

Newton’s Paradox and quantum space
Newton first published inertia in Philosophiae
Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) as three
laws of motion. Galileo introduced the inertia
concept about 1605, before Newton. Newton’s
Laws of Motion are the branch of physics now
termed classical mechanics that begins with the
equation . It concerns the energy transferred
by the force F when mass m is given acceleration a.
This is often regarded as the beginning of modern
physics. But no one knew what produces this
equation, a basic natural law.
Newton saw inertia as an action-at-a-
distance paradox because he expected that a
distant planetary body (visible as a star) was the
recipient of the inertial energy transfer. At that
time he could not know the energy transfer role of
quantum space – the wave medium of the WSM; it
was unknown in his time. This difficulty of Newton,
and much of the physics community today, is
illustrated by the words of Sir Oliver Lodge:
A fish probably cannot understand the existence
of water; he is too deeply immersed in it.
The Universe and all scientists – everyone,
everything – are totally immersed in quantum
space, the medium of energy transfer.

Mach’s Principle
Ernst Mach (1883) stated that inertia was caused
by the fixed stars. This was regarded as a paradox
too, despite its obvious truth. He asserted:
Every local inertial frame is determined by the
composite matter of the universe.
His deduction arose from two different methods of
measuring rotation. First, without looking at the sky
one can measure the centrifugal force on a rotating
mass m and use the inertia law to find
circumferential speed v, as in a gyroscope. The
second method is to compare the object’s angular
position with the fixed (distant) stars. Surprisingly,
both measurements give the same result. Thus he
concluded that the inertia law depends on the fixed
stars.
Quantum space to the rescue
Both Principle I and Principle II of the WSM (See
preceding articles in this journal) completely
describe the quantum-space wave medium of the
Universe. The paradoxes are resolved because the
energy-transfer mechanism of inertia is a property
of space. The Law occurs because an
accelerated particle m, exchanges energy
with Space in proportion to acceleration a. Mach’s
observation is true because Principle II of the
WSM establishes the density of space as
proportional to the sum of the waves from all
observable matter in the Hubble universe. Thus the
energy exchange with space ‘appeared’ to Galileo,
to Newton and Mach as an exchange with the
distant masses in all space. Einstein’s General
Relativity calculates motion due to energy transfer
on an astronomical scale.

2. History of motion
Prior to Galileo, the generally accepted theory of
motion was proposed by Aristotle (about 335 BC to
322 BC), which stated that in the absence of an
external motive force, all objects would naturally
come to rest, and that moving objects only move so
long as there is a power inducing them. Aristotle’s
concept of motion was believed for nearly two
millennia.
The Aristotelian concept of motion became
increasingly dubious in the face of the conclusions
of Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, who
argued that the Earth was never “at rest”, but was
in constant motion around the sun. Galileo, using
the Copernican model, restated Aristotle’s motion
as a principle:
A body moving on a level surface will continue in
the same direction at a constant speed unless
disturbed.
Galileo later concluded, based on his principle, that
it is impossible to distinguish between a moving
and a stationary object without an outside
reference to compare them. This became the
Einstein’s basis for the theory of Special Relativity.
Nevertheless, despite defining the concept so
elegantly in his laws of motion, even Newton did
not actually use the term “inertia” to refer to his
First Law. In fact, Newton originally viewed the
phenomenon he described in his First Law of Motion
as being caused by “innate forces” inherent in
matter, which resisted any acceleration. Given this
perspective, and borrowing from Kepler, Newton
attributed the term “inertia” to mean “the innate
force possessed by an object which resists changes
in motion”; thus Newton defined “inertia” to mean
the cause of the phenomenon, rather than the
phenomenon itself. However, Newton’s original
ideas of “innate resistive force” were problematic,
and thus most physicists no longer think in these
terms. As no alternate mechanism has been
accepted, the term “inertia” has come to mean
simply the phenomenon itself, rather than an
inherent mechanism. Thus, “inertia” in modern
classical physics has come to be a name for the
same phenomenon described by Newton’s First Law
of Motion.

Relativistic motion
Albert Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity (1905)
“On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” was
built on the inertia of Galileo and Newton. Einstein’s
inertia concept in his later General Relativity (1916)
provided a unified theory unchanged from
Newton’s original inertia. However, this limited
Special Relativity so that it only applied when
reference frames were inertial meaning that no
acceleration was present. In his General Relativity
Einstein found it necessary to redefine inertia and
gravity, in terms of a new geodesic “curvature” of
space-time, instead of the more traditional forces
understood by Newton. The result is that according
to General Relativity, if concerned with very large
distances, the traditional Newtonian idea of
“inertia” does not actually apply. Luckily, for
sufficiently small regions of space-time, the Special
Theory can still be used.
A profound conclusion of Special Relativity was that
energy and mass are interchangeable, . Thus
if mass exhibits inertia, then inertia must also apply
to energy as well.

3. Calculations
Shapes of the Universe
Einstein’s General Relativity calculates gravity and
inertial forces by using a geometric model of the
Universe where density changes with distance,
measured by the Hubble constant H. The changes
in space density cause space geometry to differ
from Euclidean geometry. If the difference is zero,
it is called a flat Universe. If it is flat, then the
density is termed critical, that is, , where G is
the gravity constant. If the density change is
positive or negative, it is termed
a spherical or hyperbolic Universe. These shapes of
the Universe have, until recently, been entirely
theoretical since no data existed to choose one or
the other. Recent measurements by Bernardis
(2000) show that the Universe is flat with a 10%
possible error.
The complete General Relativity calculations are
very complex because the complete geometry of a
varying Universe requires a six dimensional
algebra, 6D. However if the Universe is flat then the
inertial energy transfers are simple. They can be
calculated with 3D methods as follows:
Assume that accelerating matter in space creates
an ‘acceleration field’. This is a calculation
analogous to the electric acceleration field Ea that
produces a force on an accelerated charge e. The
analogy calculates a matter acceleration field Ma in
space that produces a force F on a mass m with
acceleration a. In this situation, energy is
transferred between the mass and the surrounding
space created by the Universe. The force F is an
equal and opposite interaction between the
mass m and the Universe. The acceleration changes
the frequency of the matter waves by the Doppler
effect. The resulting energy transfers to space and
the accompanying force are local. Thus they appear
almost instantaneous in agreement with
astronomical observations and space missions and
explain Newton’s paradox.
Accelerated mass interacts with the Universe:
Define the two masses involved: One is m and the
other is Mu, the mass of the Hubble universe, that
creates the field. Since we know the we can
find its average mass and its density. The density is
given by the General Theory of Relativity as the
critical density dc of a ‘flat’ universe,
Formula 1
Acceleration causes a change of the mass’s
wavelengths in quantum space. This wavelength
change disturbs the local amplitude balance with
waves from other matter in the universe.
The Minimum Amplitude Principle (a form
of Principle II) corrects the imbalance by moving
the accelerated mass with respect to the space
medium. This produces the forces.

Let’s calculate inertia

To compute inertia, find the force on the
accelerated mass analogous to force on an
accelerated charge (calledradiation damping):
Formula 2

In analogy,
Formula 3

The Ea field of an accelerated charge e depends on

the magnetic vector potential A:
Formula 4

Where r is the average distance to the matter

sources of the space field.
For the analogous particle m, assume an analogous
mass acceleration field:
Formula 5

Where the gravity constant G has replaced the

electric constant .
This acceleration field Ma, due to acceleration of the
mass m, acts upon the Universe. (More correctly it
acts on the quantum space produced by the mass
of the Universe)
The mass mu of the Universe is
Formula 6

Where du is chosen equal to the density of a flat

(critical) Universe . Insert all relations into
the force Equation:
Formula 7

Where r is the average distance to the matter

sources of the Universe that create the local space.
This distance is taken as half of the Hubble
distance . Then,
Formula 8

Inserting the radius of the Universe

Formula 9

Surprisingly, every factor cancels in the equation

leaving Newton’s Law of inertia: . This result
confirms action-at-a-distance, shows that inertial
mass equals gravitational mass as observed, and
predicts a flat universe. It reaffirms Mach’s
Principle.
Summarizing, we have used Principle II (which
yields Mach’s principle) that the space medium is
established by all masses of the Hubble Universe,
and that the local space medium exchanges energy
with any accelerated mass. As a result, we obtain
Newton’s Law and establish a mechanism for
inertia.

Conclusions
Quantum space is the origin of Mach’s Principle and
Inertia: Inertia exists because of the presence of
the unseen space (the quantum-wave medium)
around us and throughout the Universe. The
density of this space is determined by waves from
all the stars, galaxies and other mass in the
Universe. In other words, the stars determine a
frame of reference for rotational motion because
the stars create the quantum space. So we see that
Mach was really observing the presence of the
quantum space around us, rather than the stars
that produce it. There is no need to travel to the
stars. For linear motion (The rock you threw across
the river) space created by the stars, according
to Principle II, is the frame of reference for
acceleration.
It is important to realize that the quantum space is
the heart of the Universe. It is the one thing that
unites all of the Natural Laws, astronomy,
cosmology, and our lives that are inter-connected
with them. All that you need to know to find the
complete origin of the laws of the Universe is the
existence of quantum-space and its two
properties: Principle I and Principle II. Nothing
else.
http://www.quantummatter.com/space-resonance/origin-of-newtons-law-of-inertia/
Origin of Newton's Laws
Term paper for ART201 course, fall 2007, written by Abhishek Dasgupta.
other formats: text pdf

In this article I describe the origins of Newton’s Laws, starting from ancient
Greek notions of space time and how those ideas evolved. I also talk about the
laws from a modern standpoint. How Newton’s Laws had far-reaching
implications in science and philosophy is also discussed.

Introduction
Newton's Laws really need no introduction. We've literally grown up with
them. Sprayed across textbooks liberally, it has become so ubiquitous that all of
us take for granted, and often overlook the revolutionary philosophical and
scientific shift in human thinking that Newton brought about. To truly
understand the splendour of Newton’s work, we've to turn to the ones who first
properly began to explore logic and philosophy. Though their ideas were later
found to be incorrect, they must be understood for appreciating the scientific
framework of Newton’s day.

The Greeks
Zeno

The ancient Greeks were perennially confused and pondered about space, time
and motion. One of the first among the ancients to deeply think about the
problem of understanding motion was Zeno of Elea, who is famous for
his paradoxes.

Zeno's paradoxes seem to show that motion is simply an illusion. Of his eight
surviving paradoxes (which are presented in Aristotle's Physics), many are
equivalent to one another. Three paradoxes of his are the most famous – that of
Achilles and the tortoise, the dichotomy argument, and an arrow in flight.

I'll present the paradoxes in brief here:

 • In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the
pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the
slower must always hold a lead.
– Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b15
• That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it
arrives at the goal.
– Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10
• If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which
is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the
flying arrow is therefore motionless.
– Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5

In the first paradox, Zeno tells us that Achilles (the runner) will never catch up
with the tortoise; as the distance between Achilles and the tortoise will continue
to decrease, but will never become zero.

In the second paradox, Zeno says that some one must complete half of the
journey, then half of the remaining journey, and so on. This requires the mover
to complete an infinite number of tasks, which Zeno deems impossible.

In the third paradox, Zeno says that when we observe an arrow in flight, at any
instant of time, it seems to be at rest. So all motion is an illusion.

These above paradoxes show us how the Greeks had conceptual problems with
the idea of infinitesimals, which was only properly defined in the 1600s by
Newton and Leibnitz and put on a firm mathematical grounding by Auguste
Louis Cauchy much later. Aristotle refutes the paradoxes by countering that
time is not a succession of nows. Modern solutions involve the idea of
infinitesimals and the concept that even after an infinite number of terms, the
sum can still be finite.

Aristotle

Aristotle, considered by many as the father of modern scientific thought, was

the son of a Greek doctor who served the king of Macedonia. He believed in
observance of the material world rather than rely on commonplace opinion.

His theory of motion was limited by the era in which he lived. He believed that
earth was the center of the universe and that gravity was just the tendency of
everything to rush to its center. He believed that the natural state of all bodies
was rest, that all bodies tended to return to rest and needed a mover to keep
them in motion. For Aristotle this mover was Zeus. The concept of inertia did
not exist then as we know of. He believed that everything moved in a straight
line until something intervened to deflect or stop it. He famously remarked that
a heavy body falls faster than a light one, which was refuted by Galileo
centuries later.

Galileo
We approach the Newtonian ideas with Galileo Galilei's ideas and experiments
of motion. Galileo could be regarded the father of kinematics, the study of
moving objects. Galileo was one of the first to realise that the laws of reality
could be described using mathematics. Though I'll only discuss his contribution
to the study of motion, Galileo's contributions to astronomy were more
immense. His support of the heliocentric theory (that the sun was the centre of
the universe) caused anger in the Church.

Galileo's theoretical and experimental work on the motions of bodies, along

with the largely independent work of Kepler and René Descartes, was a
precursor of the classical mechanics developed by Sir Isaac Newton. Galileo
developed the idea of acceleration. He rolled balls down inclined planes. He
proved using these experiments that they are accelerated independently of their
mass.

Galileo found the correct formula for relating distance covered for an uniformly
accelerating body (it is proportional to the square of the time elapsed). He also
concluded that objects retain their velocity unless a force (often friction) acts
upon them, refuting the generally accepted Aristotelian hypothesis that objects
"naturally" slow down and stop unless a force acts upon them. He established
the concept of inertia, which was a groundbreaking idea. His principle of inertia
states that "A body moving on a level surface will continue in the same
direction at constant speed unless disturbed." This was later incorporated into
Newton's First Law.

Galileo also put forward a principle of relativity, now known as Galilean

invariance. It states that the fundamental laws of physics are the same in all
inertial frames. Specifically, the term Galilean invariance today usually refers
to this principle as applied to Newtonian mechanics, meaning that Newton’s
Laws hold true in all inertial frames. A frame is inertial with respect to another
frame if it is moving with a constant velocity with respect to that frame.

Newton
If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants.
— Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke, February 1676.

Sir Isaac Newton had indeed seen further than all who had come before him.
During his lifespan, he made revolutionary breakthroughs in mathematics, the
science of optics, mechanics and gravitation. So powerful were his ideas, that
they went virtually unchallenged for more than three hundred years till 1905,
when Albert Einstein changed our worldview once again with his theory of
relativity.

Though Newton's contributions to all these fields were immense, he is most

famously remembered for his three laws of motion. The immense implications
and philosophical shift which originated with Galileo and put on a firmer basis
by Newton dominated scientific thought from the 1600s to the 1900s. These
laws were first published in his magnum opus, the Philosophiae Naturalis
Principia Mathematica in 1687.

The Three Laws of Motion

• Law of Inertia Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel

movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis
cogitur statum illum mutare.

An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external and
unbalanced force. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon
by an external and unbalanced force.

The Law of Inertia may seem obvious to most people in the present age, but it
was not so in ancient times. As we saw, Aristotle had a markedly different
notion of motion. This law was, in fact, first proposed by Galileo; it is a clear
departure from Aristotelian ideas of motion, and forms the basis of the next two
laws.

• Law of acceleration Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici

impressae, et fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.

The rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the resultant force

acting on the body and is in the same direction.

Using modern notation of differentials, we can write Newton's second law in

this form: F = d(mv)/dt, where F and v are the force and velocity vectors, while
m and t are mass and time, respectively.
 • Law of reciprocal actions Actioni contrariam semper et qualem esse
reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse
quales et in partes contrarias dirigi.

All forces occur in pairs, and these two forces are equal in magnitude and
opposite in direction.

Newton used the third law to derive the law of conservation of momentum
(mv); how- ever from a deeper perspective, the conservation of momentum is
the more fundamental idea (derived via Noether's theorem from Galilean
invariance), and holds in cases where Newtonian mechanics seems to fail, as in
quantum mechanics.

Newton's ideas of inertial frames could be summarised as two axioms, which

define his idea of space-time:

• There exists an absolute space, in which Newton’s laws are true. An

inertial frame is a reference frame in relative uniform motion to absolute
space.
• All inertial frames share an universal time.

Newton's laws were verified by experiment and observation for over 200 years,
and they are excellent approximations at the scales and speeds of everyday life.
Newton's laws of motion, together with his law of universal gravitation and the
mathematical techniques of calculus, provided for the first time a unified
quantitative explanation for a wide range of physical phenomena.

However Newton's laws of motion while seemingly valid, did not give us a
precise idea of space-time. It's true that the law of inertia paved the way for a
more modern understanding of physical reality; by doing away with aged
Aristotelian notions, and while a lot of experiments done on everyday objects
seemed to show Newton correct, we still had no idea about the structure of
space time itself.

To illustrate the kind of problems we can run into; let's consider a rope, whose
two ends have small stones tied to each other. From common experience, we
would say that the rope would stretch taut. Now let's consider that there's
nothing else in the universe. Would the rope still stretch taut? For there was no
reference frame that we could conceivably think of. However Newton
countered with the idea of absolute space and absolute time. According to
him, the rope would stretch taut because it was spinning with respect to
absolute space. Also time flowed the same way in all frames. But in attempting
to describe absolute space, Newton sidestepped it and himself acknowledged
that he could not properly define it. He said "Absolute space, in its own nature,
without reference to anything external, remains always similar and
unmovable."

Conclusion
It is undoubtedly true that Newton had a great deal of impact on modern
scientific thought. His laws of motion held true for more than three centuries,
and still hold true today for everyday objects. More importantly, he along with
Laplace and other scientists of his era established the deterministic worldview
which said that if we know all the positions and momenta of objects in the
universe at this instant, we could predict anything in the future. This certainty
would not be challenged until Werner Heisenberg came up with his famous
Uncertainty Principle which said that both the position and momenta cannot be
determined simultaneously with accuracy. His ideas on absolute space and time
were debated, but not seriously challenged till Ernst Mach came with his firmly
relationist position. In his view, in an empty universe the Newton's rope would
not stretch taut but lay slack, as there could be no differentiation between
spinning and not spinning, as there were no benchmarks, no reference points at
all.

Such a potent idea troubled many physicists and had a profound impact on
Albert Einstein; however in his attempt to incorporate Machian notions into his
equations, he failed, and introduced something that redefined the question
itself. He introduced absolute space-time.

As we move away from Newtonian ideas to Einstein's notions of relativity, and

even more bizarre theories of the 20th century, which challenge and move our
intuition to a new level, Newton's famous quote aptly sums it up:

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have
been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and
then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

http://www.abhidg.net/writings/newtonslawsorigin.html