...formularised by Newton in his first law of motion: — 'Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, except so far as it may be compelled by force to change that state." This formula contains the repudiation of a belief which had blocked the progress of physics...

...members of the class, about which judgment is passed. I may judge that this leaf is green and that "every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless impelled by external force to change that state"; also that parts of the leaf are green and...

...Celsius, a boiling point of 2.966 degrees Celsius and a specific gravity of 19.3 at 20 degrees Celsius. Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a right line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. Different though...

...discovered: That the weights of two bodies are proportional to their masses. That every body perseveres in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except as compelled to change that state by impressed forces. That change of motion is proportional to the...

...Aristotelian when, in his definition of inertia, he described the faculty by which any body remains in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line as a potentia. It is also worth noting that the modern word potential, as in potential energy, was...

...laws of motion. A free translation of these laws from the Latin of the Principia goes as follows : I Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces applied to it. II The rate of change of momentum...

...independently of the effects they produce. What d'Alembert should have said in his first law was that 'every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line until it strikes or is struck by another impenetrable body'. According to his own argument, this statement...

...strange law that every body, left to itself (ie not acted upon by any force) would continue indefinitely in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line. What is so difficult about this law is that it is hard to imagine something not acted upon by any force!...

...to design and monitor programmes of control. In just such a way Newton's First Law ('a body remains in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless acted on by external forces') serves as a point of departure for exploring what happens when...

...His discovery is formalized in Newton's first law: Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, except so far as it may be compelled by force to change that state. As Whitehead says, "this formula contains the repudiation of a belief which had blocked the...