Newton's Laws of Motion

Historical Context Note

Robert Iliffe (Imperial College London)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Domains

Planetary Astronomy and Laws of Motion

Dates

Date of occurrence 1687

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Newton's laws of motion, propounded in the Principia Mathematica of 1687, were that 1) a body remains in its state of rest or uniform motion (i.e. in a straight line) unless it is acted upon by an external force, (2) that the change of motion (the rate of change of velocity times the mass of the body) is proportional to the force and in the direction of that force; (3) that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Applying these laws to an analysis of the orbit of the Moon around the Earth, and to the velocity of falling objects on the Earth's surface, led to the “law of universal gravitation ”which states that any body attracts any other with a force equivalent to a constant multiplied by the …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

409 words

Citation: Iliffe, Robert. "Newton's Laws of Motion". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 May 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1548, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Newton's Laws of Motion

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback