Newton Netwon\'s Laws of Motion

Newton

Netwon's Laws of Motion

A source for a staggering degree of revelation, Newton's recombination of the truths which laid the groundwork for his life's work yielded nothing less than a new ideological order of thought. In terms of both the development of his own ideas and the forging of paths for posthumous discoveries, Newton's accomplishments are unrivaled in their influence and staying power. Though it is true that later accomplishments would render many of his conclusions incorrect, there is a point of fact in these scientific studies that they proceeded with an initial intent to disprove Newton's rules. Such is to say that even when his ideas, processes and conclusions were being tested, his blueprint would serve as the inspiration for such work. Even still, many of his observations stand as natural laws today and we collectively recall the so-called Newtonian Age as one from which we have established continuity in evolution rather than divergence. Isaac Newton can essentially be regarded, due to his preeminence in his time and his reigning influence today, as the father of natural sciences. Though he is most highly esteemed for his works in theory, it bears noting that his accuracy was often just as visionary, accounting for the perpetual absoluteness of his three laws of motion, which were unleashed on the world in Prncipia's volumes.

The first of these laws, a formalization of Galileo's law of inertia, observes that a body in motion will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. Likewise, a still body, unless acted upon by another force, will remain still. This is a law with complex implications concerning astronomical movement. According to Nave (2000), "Newton's First Law contains implications about the fundamental symmetry of the universe in that a state of motion in a straight line must be just as 'natural' as being at rest. If an object is at rest in one frame of reference, it will appear to be moving in a straight line to an observer in a reference frame which is moving by the object." (Nave, 1) In this regard, we can place Newton in a discussion of scientific continuity predicating Einstein's laws of relativity. Indeed, in this first law, Newton contributes the idea that relative perspective will play a part in the way that motion is perceived, precipitating the conclusion that there is a constant velocity in the movement of the planets.

In many ways, this theory would be an echo of the ideas provided by Galileo relating the universe as being heliocentric and not geocentric as once held by conventional knowledge and the Catholic Church. Newton's Second Law of Motion, however, represented a substantial leap from the Galileo point of entry, asserting that "the acceleration of a body is proportional to the force on it. This is consistent with our experience that the harder we push on a moveable body, the quicker its speed changes." (Casco, 1). Newton operationalized this theory by asserting that where 'F' is force, 'm' is mass and 'a' is acceleration, F=ma. This is a universally circulated formula that denotes one of the most fundamental rules of the corporeal world. It is noted that the corporeal world is the context to which this discussion specifically applies, with particles at the subatomic level not abiding the same principles. That said, a diagram included in the Nave explanation of Newton's laws helps to clarify that which is meant by the above equation. A man is shown swinging a golf club into a golf ball in one image and in the next image, he is shown swinging the club into moving truck. We take as a primary understanding from these images that the mass of the object struck will have a direct bearing on the force required to accelerate it. At an identical force, the man's swing might drive the golf ball several hundred yards while perhaps only denting the moving truck.

It was supplemented even further by the Third Law of Motion that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This is proceeded from the initial assumption that force is created by the interaction between two bodies. Newton would express the idea that the mutual effects of two objects acting upon one another will be proportional in scale, impacted by the conditions of the Second Law where mass will play a role in the actual size of an 'equal reaction.' The 'opposite' aspect of this reaction is intended to mean the trajectory of an object or actor following intersection. This is clarified in Motte's (1729) highly regarded translation of Newton's Principia (1687), where it is indicated that "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." (Motte, 1)