| Lex I: 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. This
is essentially Galileo's concept of inertia, and this is often referred to as
the "Law of Inertia". Examples: If
you are holding a glass of water steady the liquid will not move. Once you apply
a force and accelerate the glass, the water wants to remain in the same position
and can therefore spill out of the glass. The same would happen if you were walking
steady with a glass of water and stopped short. The water would continue in motion
and spill out of the glass. Lex II: 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 equal to the resultant force acting on the body
and is in the same direction. In
an exact original 1792 translation (from Latin) Newton's Second Law of Motion
reads: LAW II:
The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and
is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. —
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
relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force
F is F = ma. Iin
this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the
acceleration vector. Examples:
Falling objects
accelerate because of the force of gravity pulls on the object. Lex
III: Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum
actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi.
All forces occur in
pairs, and these two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.
For every action
there is an equal and opposite reaction. Examples: When
a hammer strikes a nail, the nail exerts and equal and opposite force back on
the hammer. A
rocket taking off from earth which pushes fuel in one direction and the rocket
in the other. |