Sir Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1693 (December 25, 1642 O.S) and was christened as a “natural philosopher” until his death date, March 31, 1727 (March 20, 1726 O.S). This term, back in his day, characterized his fascinations and intensive knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, theology, writing and physics, among other things.
Other natural philosophers studied motion of the natural world before Isaac Newton, such as Aristotle and Galileo Galilei. In a nutshell, Aristotle taught that the materials contributing to the composition of the Earth contradicted those that composed the Heavens, and that dynamics was primarily determined by the nature (four basic elements: water, air, earth, fire) of an object that was in motion.
Also abbreviated, Galileo taught that, contrary to most beliefs in his era, the Sun is the center of the Solar System, not the Earth. These two philosophers held firmly contrasting beliefs in relation to dynamics, physics, and motion. For example (applying the physics of an arrow), a recurring question for Aristotle was why an arrow that was shot from a bow, continued to move through the air without the string of the bow acting as the “pusher or mover” that’s propelling it.
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In Galileo’s dynamics, which opposed Aristotle’s, the arrow stayed in motion because of inertia (note that Galileo’s inertia differs from Newton’s inertia that we’re familiar with). That arrow consisted of the properties of very small frictional forces, so it continued to fly through the air; while a block of wood on a table stopped sliding once the force applied to it was removed because of frictional forces that Aristotle had failed to interpret accurately. Another example of how their ideas contrasted is through Heaven, the Earth, and the Solar System.
Aristotle believed that the set of laws that governed the motion of the Heavens were different than those that governed motion on the Earth. In contrast, Galileo’s extensive telescopic observations of the Heavens made it more and more plausible that they were not made from a perfect, unchanging material that was different from those that formed the Earth, as Aristotle thought. Galileo’s examinations confirmed his confidence in the Copernican Theory, which proposed that the Earth was solely another planet (and not the center of the Solar System), so it was more pragmatic to believe that it was made from the same material as the other planets.
Both of these revelations were imperative because the fundamentals that were arranged by Galileo (and to a lesser extent, among others like Kepler and Copernicus), was to vanquish the physics of Aristotle (as well as his astronomy). In conclusion, it fell to Isaac Newton to truss these variant threads together and eminently establish and demonstrate that the laws that governed the heavens were the same ones that were present on the surface of the Earth, which technically categorizes everything in the natural world.
In 1666, Newton established his renowned three laws, which still act as the foundation for theories, ideas, observations, experiments, proposals, and so on and so forth to be substratum under. The first one states, “every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it.” For example, a ball will keep rolling unless stopped by a foot; and it will stay in rest unless a foot urges it to move. “The acceleration of an object is parallel [disambiguation needed] and directly proportional to the net force F and inversely proportional to the mass m, i.e., F = ma.”
Unpretentiously stated, a lighter object will travel at a more accelerated rate than one that is heavier: with the same amount of net force applied to both of the objects. In likeness, the more force that is driving an object, the faster it will accelerate. His concluding and eventual axiom expresses that every action in this natural world has a commensurate and antithetical reaction.
For instance, if you calcitrated a ball, it would, within theory, kick your foot back. These three laws have assisted our studies and knowledge of the principles of modern motion. The forces Newton studied are both evident in nature today, and were evident during his day.
Avalanche snow bank keeps sliding down the mountain unless there are many trees or another obstruction like rocks to stop it–triggered by voice/noise, animal/movement A predator like a lion chasing a prey like a baby gazelle. The lion has more mass and acceleration and will likely catch its prey. A squirrel jumping from one tree to another tree. The branch he jumps off of moves down then up and the branch he jumps onto moves down and then up in response to the force of the squirrels’ jump.
A horse pulling a carriage An acorn and a pumpkin being released from two trebuchets at the same time. The acorn has less mass and will travel a further distance than the pumpkin which has more mass. A person standing on the edge of a boat in a water jumps off the front of the boat. The boat moves in the opposite direction or back. Because Newton was so inquisitive and observant, he noticed laws of the natural world that other scientists and great thinkers of his day failed to recognize. If the basic motion principles that Isaac Newton discovered did not exist, it would affect us greatly and daily.
The avalanche would not be triggered in the first place// would not be stopped at all, the snow banks would eventually reach cities and cause major destruction and death. If predators could not capture prey, entire ecosystem would collapse and starvation would be rampant. If trees did not absorb some of the energy from an animal’s jump, then animals could experience severe bodily injury from a simple maneuver.
If laws did not work the way we would do, the world would be in constant disarray and disorder. These laws are apparent in daily life. The first law is evident when a car’s brakes are applied, the car comes to a stop. With the second law, it is noticeable on the ball field. If a baseball and dodgeball are both thrown from home plate towards the fence, the baseball will travel a longer distance than the dodge ball.
Finally, the third law affects daily life of swimmers. As the swimmer jumps off the diving board into the pool, the diving board moves down and then up. If there was not this spring effect, the diving board would be useless to propel the swimmer into the water. Because there is evidence of these laws in daily life, his ideas have never been questioned or disputed–his ideas quickly moved from theory to law. Newton’s legacy is he influenced many other scientists and mathematicians in the Western world and other discoveries and inventions were made possible because of his genius.
Works Cited
- NASA, NASA, www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/newton.html. Venus and Mars, zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph121/l3.html.
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/aris-mot/.
- The Universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and the Role of Eratosthenes, www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/aristotle_dynamics13.html.
- Anonymous. “Newton’s Laws of Motion.” How Things Fly, howthingsfly.si.edu/flight-dynamics/newton’s-laws-motion.
- “Isaac Newton.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 2 Aug. 2017, www.biography.com/people/isaac-newton-9422656.
- “Previous Beliefs Before Newton – Isaac Newton Project17.Com.” Google Sites, www.sites.google.com/site/isaacnewtonproject17nsacom/previous-beliefs-before-newton.
