Origins of Newton's First Law

Eugene Hecht
Citation: The Physics Teacher 53, 80 (2015); doi: 10.1119/1.4905802
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Origins of Newtons First Law

Eugene Hecht,

Adelphi University, Garden City, NY

nyone who has taught introductory physics should

know that roughly a third of the students initially
believe that any object at rest will remain at rest,
whereas any moving body not propelled by applied forces
will promptly come to rest. Likewise, about half of those
uninitiated students believe that any object moving at a constant speed must be continually pushed if it is to maintain its
motion.1 Thats essentially Aristotles law of motion and it is
so obviously borne out by experience that it was accepted
by scholars for 2000 years, right through the Copernican
Revolution. But, of course, its fundamentally wrong. This
paper tells the story of how the correct understanding, the
law of inertia, evolved and how Newton came to make it his
first law.

The Philosopher, impetus, and Kepler

Aristotle (384322 B.C.E.) was so esteemed in the Middle
Age that he was reverentially known as the Philosopher. Even
though most of his physics was wrong, the scholastics of the
era doggedly followed his teachings. For them, and hence
for Christendom, the celestial domain was everlasting and
formed of a fifth perfect elementther. Space was filled;
vacuum could not exist. Each ordinary element (fire, earth,
air, and water) had its place toward which it strained to return.
An earthlike rock had gravitas and naturally fell to the center
of Earth, the center of the universe. Any other motion was unnatural and required some external influence. A mover must
continuously be in contact with that which it moves. Apart
from falling, rest was the default state of weighty things.
The idea that without some tangible entity pushing or
pulling it an object could not experience sustained (unnatural) motion had not gone unchallenged in medieval times;
the sixth-century commentator John Philoponus (490570),
while considering projectile motion, asserted that [s]uch
a view is quite incredible and borders on the fantastic.2 He
proposed that just as a poker carries heat away from the fire,
so upon being set into motion an object carries away some
motive power. As long as a projectile retains this internal drive
(which came to be known as impetus), it continues to move,
stopping only when there is resistance, which dissipates that
self-propelling influence.
Five centuries later, the Muslim scholar Abu Al ibn Sn
(9801037), known in the West as Avicenna, concluded,
[N]obody begins to move or comes to rest of itself.3 This is
probably the earliest precursor of the first law and that revelation would reemerge centuries later.
In Paris Jean Buridan (c. 1295c. 1358), extending Philoponuss work, maintained (c. 1330) that what he christened
impetus could be considered an internalized motive force. In
both ancient and medieval physics, force is that which causes
motion; in Newtonian physics, force is that which changes motion. This impetus would endure for an infinite time, pro80

claimed Buridan, if it were not diminished and corrupted by

an opposed resistance [e.g., friction] or by something tending
to an opposed motion [i.e., gravity].4 In an imagined vacuum
free of gravity, if there was such a possibility, impetus theory
allowed (as had Aristotle)5 that once set in motion, a body
sans resistance would move uniformly and rectilinearly forever. But that was obviously impossible.
Furthermore, there could exist both rectilinear and rotational impetus. Thus, a balanced frictionless millstone, once
set revolving, could whirl forever, as do the celestial orbs having been spun by the hand of God at the moment of creation.
Around 1618 Johannes Kepler (15711630), mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II, introduced the notion of the
inertia of matter:

For each body in proportion to its matter possesses a
certain inertial resistance to motion. This inertia provides a state of rest for the body in any place in which it
is located beyond the reach of forces of attraction.6
Keplers inertia resists motion; it does not sustain uniform
motion. It is not Newtons inertia. Rest is a state of being, just
as uniform motion will become a state of being in the hands
of Galileo.

Galileo and Descartes

In his Discourses Concerning Two New Sciences (1638),7
Galileo Galilei (15641642,
Fig. 1) described several
demonstrations that explored
the nature of motion. He
proposed to set two lengths of
molding end to end, one tilted down, the other up, such
that a ball descending the
first could smoothly ascend
the second. The Tuscan Master then successively lessened
Fig. 1. Galileo Galilei. Portrait the angle of the second asby Ottavio Leoni, Dec. 31, 1623. cending plane. Although the
ball rolled farther with each angle decrease, it always slowed
to a stop at just about the same height at which it was initially
released. Any difference, he concluded, was due to friction,
and that was a pivotal insight. Galileo surmised that if the
second plane was horizontal and the process truly frictionless, the ball would travel forever. He asked his reader to

[i]magine any particle projected along a horizontal plane without friction; then we know,
that this particle will move along this same plane
with a motion which is uniform and perpetual
provided the plane has no limits.8

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DOI: 10.1119/1.4905802

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On a spherical Earth pretty much

everything moves along circles;
circular motion, though not always
apparent, is everywhere. Sig. Galileo
was a very practical thinker; he knew
that if that horizontal plane was
long enough, it must also follow the
curvature of the planet. This is well
beyond Aristotles law, especially
since the Philosopher did not take
friction to be a force. Nonetheless
Galileo does not explicitly embrace
the linearity of inertia. After all, he
accepted the Copernican worldview;
the Sun was at the center and everything revolved around it. In such a
finite universe an object moving rectilinearly forever made little sense.
He even argued in the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
(1632), regarding moving bodies,
it is impossible that their motions
should be straight .9 Yet he could Fig. 2. William Blakes Newton (1795), color print with pen and ink.
also say, the velocity acquired
which if acting alone would carry the
body at a uniform rate to infinity . 10
Galileos earliest statement on inertia appeared in a
letter published in 1613. Therein he advised,
a heavy body on a [frictionless] spherical surface
concentric with the Earth will maintain itself
in that state in which it has once been placed; that
is, if placed in a state of rest, it will conserve that;
and if placed in movement toward the west (for
example), it will maintain itself in that movement.11
This is not rectilinear motion, nor is it circular inertia; gravity, Galileos only natural force, is acting. Although Galileo
got tantalizingly close to the law of inertia, he never fully
articulated it.
By contrast, the mathematician Ren Descartes (1596
1650) imagined inertial motion was both uniform and rectilinear. Without the bother of experimentation, he straightened Galileos conception: [It] is one of the Laws of Nature,
that all Things will continue in the State they once are, unless
any external Cause interposes .12 Consequently when a
body moves, though its motion is most frequently performed
in a curved line [echoes of Galileo] nevertheless each of its
particular parts tends always to continue its own [motion] in
a right [straight] line.13 A body could sail rectilinearly forever in an endless Cartesian universe.
Descartes, who was never one to credit his sources, derided Galileos work. More egregiously, Descartes did not credit
his own mentor, the Dutch scholar Isaac Beeckman (1588
1637). As early as 16131614, Beeckman maintained (as had

Fig. 3. Newtons Principia. Licensed under Creative Commons

Attribution Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons, http://
commons.wikimedia.org.

Avicenna) that an object in motion stays in motion because

it cannot, by itself, do otherwise. He knew that it takes an
external force to change motion, but he wrongly thought inertia was both linear and circular. Intimidated by Descartess
denunciations, Beeckman never published his own brilliant
conclusions, which he had freely shared with Descartes. Some
of his journals did find their way into print (1644), but that
was only years after his death.
Although Descartes got it right, it was for the wrong
reason; as he put it, [R]est is contrary to motion, and nothing by its own nature can tend toward its contrary . Not
so; rest and uniform motion are actually indistinguishable.
Descartes never got near that subtle Beeckmanean-GalileanEinsteinean insight. Descartes went on to fill space with invisible fluid vortices that moved the planets; having no need for
it, he dispensed with gravity altogether. Predictably, Newton,

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81

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who was brought up on the popular Cartesian worldview, ultimately disavowed it completely.

The Principia and Lex I

While an undergraduate, Newton (Fig. 2) came to appreciate Galilean relativity. Master Galilei imagined a ship moving
at constant velocity in a calm sea. He concluded (1632) that
no observer could determine, from the behavior of any number of mechanical devices located in an isolated cabin, the
speed of the vessel. [N]or could you tell from any of them,
he asserted, whether the ship was moving or standing still.14
The laws of mechanics must be the same in all uniformly
moving coordinate systems. This wonderful realization
would have a profound effect on Newton.
In 1684, prompted by Dr. Edmond Halley, Newton at 42
began the great work revolutionizing dynamics. He soon
produced a nine-page monograph titled De motu corporum
in gyrum (i.e., On Motion of Bodies in Orbit); it would become
part of a longer treatise. His efforts over the next two-and-ahalf years culminated in the Philosophi Naturalis Principia
Mathematica (Fig. 3), a book that changed physics, and indeed Western culture, forever.
Prior to Galileo, uniform motion was ongoing change, an
object moved through absolute space, and it changed its absolute location; uniform motion was a becoming, whereas rest
was an abiding. Rest was a stasis, an unaltered state; by contrast, uniform motion had to be maintained by some agency
such as impetus. The two were philosophically antithetical, as
Descartes wrongly insisted.
Seventeenth-century philosophers frequently used the
Latin term vis, meaning force, and so vis insitae (inherent
force) was commonly the power that propelled a body in uniform motion. Newton in drafts of De motu incorporated that
term in his Law 1. Later recognizing that uniform motion was
an unchanging state of being, he introduced a new term of his
own, vis inertiae (force of inertia). And he made it clear that
this was not a force in the same sense as impressed force (vis
impressa) was a changer of motion.15 Newton, appreciating
irony, took the word inertia from a printed correspondence in
which Descartes rejected Keplers epiphany.16
By the time Newton got to writing the rest of the Principia
(which is all about force), he had a refined appreciation of
inertiaI do not mean Keplers force of inertia, by which
bodies tend to rest, but a force of remaining in the same state
either of resting or of moving.17 And he had the concept of
impressed forcewhat we call applied forceas the action
that changes the state of motion or rest.
The Principia begins with eight definitions and a scholium
(skoh-lee-uhm) or commentary on time, space, and motion.
Newton embraced absolute time but not absolute space. As he
put it,
[I]nstead of absolute places and motions we use
relative ones, . For it is possible that there is no
body truly at rest to which places and motions
may be referred.18
82

If space is absolute, uniform motion (velocity) is absolute

and distinct from absolute rest, but if velocity is relative (as
per Galileo), absolute rest disappears and the law of inertia is
a consequence. With the conceptual terrain in place, Sir Isaac
offered up (1687),
LEX I: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo
quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum,
nisi quantenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum
illum mutare.
LAW 1: Every body perseveres in its state of
rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless
it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
Our exegesis of Law 1 begins with a caution from Prof.
James Clerk Maxwell. He pointed out (1877) that the word
body was not explicated in the Principia. We could guess that
Newton meant a point mass and/or a rigid object. In any
event, Maxwell suggested the body [alluded to] may be rotating, or it may consist of parts, and be capable of changes
of configuration, so that the motions of different parts may
be different, but we can still assert the laws of motion by
replacing the word body, whereupon Law 1 reads: The center
of mass of the system perseveres in its state of rest .19
The phrase perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform
motion owes a lot to Galilean invariance, which informs that
we cannot perceive a difference between rest and uniform
motion. Since rest is changeless, in a space where there are
no absolute places, uniform motion is relative, and it too is
changeless. Inasmuch as force is the agent of change, uniform
motion does not require a net applied force in order to be sustained. That these states are empirically indistinguishable
is Einsteins first postulate of relativity (1905).20 By contrast,
if Aristotles law of motion were true, all things would stop
moving when the propelling forces acting on them ceased.
They would then all be at absolute rest, which is a fiction.
In Law 1, uniform motion means constant speed as per
Galileo. The Latin phrase in linea recta translates in a right
line or for the modern reader in a straight line. Recall that
it was Descartes who exclaimed, when a body moves, it
tends always to continue its own [motion] in a right line.21
The last portion of Law 1 reads, unless it is compelled to
change that state by forces impressed upon it. Here forces
excludes the so-called inertial force. Newton is talking
about impressed force and for him there are three kinds:
pressure (e.g., a sustained push), percussion (i.e., an impact),
and centripetal (e.g., gravity). Law 1 pertains to all applied
forces, individually and in combination.
Newton used the plural: forces impressed. He distinguished between internal forces that do not change motion
and external impressed ones that do. Moreover, he had
the parallelogram technique for adding forces two at a time,
knowing that they are directional quantities.22 Even though
Law 1 does not explicitly say as much, as soon as the net im-

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pressed force vanishes (unlike a stretched spring or raised

cannonball), the body moves uniformly in a new force-free
self-sustained state. It does not return to its original state;
only the further change of motion ceases.
Given Law 2, commentators have often wondered why
Law 1 was necessary. There are several good scientific reasons
(which will be examined in a future essay) and an additional
one that is more personal. The latter comes from Newtons animosity toward the Cartesian worldview. Descartes
shunned experimentation, creating a theory of the universe
via reason and religion alone, off the top of his head as it
were. Newton found that offensive to his own mathematically
formulated empirical philosophy.
The Principia Philosophi (1644), Descartess influential
major offering, was a speculative fantasy displaying little
physical insight; not surprisingly it would serve as both an
irritant and a foil for Sir Isaac. He even turned the title of
his own work into a jibe at Descartes by appropriating the
words Principia and Philosophi. Newton added Naturalis
and Mathematica, as if to tell his readers that this alone was
the long-awaited mathematically rigorous version of natural
philosophy. He presented as Law 1 what any knowledgeable
reader at the time would have recognized as Descartess first
and second laws of nature (without even mentioning Ren),
but then he set the record straight giving Galileo credit for it.
One can imagine Newton, who could be ruthlessly vindictive,
smiling as he put pen to paper.

12. Alexandre Koyr, Newtonian Studies (Harvard University

Press, Cambridge, MA, 1965), p. 73.
13. Ref. 12, p. 73.
14. Ref. 9, pp. 186-188.
15. Max Jammer, Concepts of Force (Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1957), p. 119.
16. Isaac Newton, The Principia, translated by I. Bernard Cohen
and Anne Whitman (University of California Press, Berkeley,
CA, 1999), p. 100.
17. Ref. 16, p. 404.
18. Ref. 16, p. 411.
19. James Clerk Maxwell, Matter and Motion (Dover Publications,
New York, 1991), p. 48.
20. Eugene Hecht, From the postulates of relativity to the law of
inertia, Phys. Teach. 38, 497 (Nov. 2000).
21. Ref. 12, p. 73.
22. Galileo had a similar understanding of how to add the two
component velocities of a projectile.
Gene Hecht is a professor of physics and author of a number of books,
including three on American ceramics and seven on physics. Among the
latter are Optics published by Addison-Wesley, and Quantum Mechanics
published by Schaum's Outline McGraw-Hill. His latest book is George
Ohr: The Greatest Art Potter On Earth. His main interests are the history
of ideas and the elucidation of the basic concepts of physics. He spends
most of his time teaching, studying physics, and training for his fifthdegree black belt in Tae Kwan Do.
genehecht@aol.com

References
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.

6.
7.

8.
9.
10.
11.

Ibrahim A. Halloun and David Hestenes, Common sense concepts about motion, Am. J. Phys. 53, 10561065 (Nov. 1985).
Eugene Hecht, Physics in Perspective (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1980), pp. 3192.
H. J. J. Winter, The Arabic Achievement in Physics, in Toward
Modern Science, Vol. 1, edited by Robert M. Palter (The Noonday Press, New York, 1961), p. 171.
Ref. 3, Ernest A. Moody, Laws of motion in medieval physics,
p. 220.
To prove the absurdity of vacuum, Aristotle argued: [W]hy
should it [i.e., a body set in motion in vacuum] stop in one
place rather than in another? So either it will be resting or it
will of necessity be travelling without end, unless obstructed by
something more powerful. Physics, translated by Hippocrates
Apostle (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1969), p.
73.
Johannes Kepler, Somnium, translated by Edward Rosen (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1967), p. 73.
Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso deSalvio (Dover Publications, New York, 1954), pp. 170 and 215. The first word in the
title (discorsi) is nowadays translated discourses.
Ref. 7, p. 244.
Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World SystemsPtolemaic and Copernican, translated by Stillman Drake,
(University of California Press, Berkeley, 1967), p. 19.
Ref. 7, p. 215.
Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (Doubleday Anchor, Garden City, NY, 1957), p. 113.
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