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- History
- Sir Isaac Newton; His Three Laws of Motion
-
- Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day in 1642, in Lincolnshire, England.
- Newton attended Trinity College in 1661 and had both his Bachelor of Arts
- and his Master of Arts by 1669. That same year he became the associate of
- the French Academy of Sciences. He was elected to Parilment, then appointed
- a warden, and finally, President of the Royal Society. Newton was a master
- of science and mathematics. He discovered calculus, before Leibniz' became
- popular. Perhaps Newton's most popular discovery, though, was gravity. As
- the story goes, Sir Isaac Newton was resting under a tree one day in his
- garden, when an apple fell from it and hit him on the head. Thus, he
- discovered gravity. The earth's gravitational pull pulls objects toward it.
- However, many people believe that this is only a myth created to simply
- illustrate Newton's discovery.
- Along with Newton's many discoveries, the three laws of motion are famous.
- These include inertia, acceleration, and the idea that for every action,
- there is an equal and opposite reaction. Inertia is the idea that a body in
- motion will remain in motion, and a body at rest will remain at rest. For
- example, if I were to throw a baseball into the air, it would keep going
- until grasvity pulled it back down to earth. However, if I left it sitting
- on a table, it would lie there until some kind of force were to move it. If
- I were to push a skateboard across the floor with all of my might, the
- skateboard would accelerate more than if I gave it a light shove, simply
- because there was more force behind it. More force = more acceleration. If
- I were sitting on a swing and someone were to grab hold of the swing, pull
- it backwards, and release, I would move forward in the opposite direction.
- This demonstrates the idea that, for every action, there is an equal and
- opposite reaction.
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