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Newton's first law expresses the principle of inertia: the natural behavior of a body is to move in a straight line at constant speed. A body's motion preserves the status quo, but external forces can perturb this. The modern understanding of Newton's first law is that no inertial observer is privileged over any other. The concept of an ...
However, the principle of special relativity generalizes the notion of an inertial frame to include all physical laws, not simply Newton's first law. Newton viewed the first law as valid in any reference frame that is in uniform motion (neither rotating nor accelerating) relative to absolute space; as a practical matter, "absolute space" was ...
The first test of Newton's law of gravitation between masses in the laboratory was the Cavendish experiment conducted by the British scientist Henry Cavendish in 1798. [5] It took place 111 years after the publication of Newton's Principia and approximately 71 years after his death.
General relativity explains the law of gravitation and its relation to the forces of nature. [2] It applies to the cosmological and astrophysical realm, including astronomy. [3] The theory transformed theoretical physics and astronomy during the 20th century, superseding a 200-year-old theory of mechanics created primarily by Isaac Newton.
Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change. It is one of the fundamental principles in classical physics, and described by Isaac Newton in his first law of motion (also known as The Principle of Inertia). [1]
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (English: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) [1] often referred to as simply the Principia (/ p r ɪ n ˈ s ɪ p i ə, p r ɪ n ˈ k ɪ p i ə /), is a book by Isaac Newton that expounds Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation.
(This reappears in Definition 5 of the Principia.) 2: 'Inherent force' of a body is defined in a way that prepares for the idea of inertia and of Newton's first law (in the absence of external force, a body continues in its state of motion either at rest or in uniform motion along a straight line). (Definition 3 of the Principia is to similar ...
In Newtonian mechanics, a more restricted definition requires only that Newton's first law holds true; that is, a Newtonian inertial frame is one in which a free particle travels in a straight line at constant speed, or is at rest. These frames are related by Galilean transformations.