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A brief history of Newton's laws of motion
In the 5th century BC, the ancient Greek philosophers democritus (500-440 BC) and Epicurus (34 1-270 BC) thought: "When atoms are brought into the void and nothing collides with them, they must move at the same speed." This is just the result of speculation or speculation.

In the 4th century BC, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) pointed out: Static is the natural state of an object. If there is no force, there will be no movement (force is the reason to maintain the movement of an object). This view is wrong, because it loses the key point that "force can make an object stop moving or start moving". But he first put forward the relationship between force and motion, which made a certain contribution to the development of mechanics.

In the 6th century, the Greek scholar J.Philoponus criticized Aristotle's theory of motion. He believes that the projectile itself has some power to push the object forward until it is exhausted, and later it developed into "impulse theory" in the14th century.

14th century, French philosopher Jean Buridan (1295-1358? ), Albert, Nicole oris (nicole oresme, 1320? -1382) and others put forward the "impulse theory". They think: "When a pusher pushes an object to move, he exerts a certain impulse or force on it. The greater the speed, the greater the impulse, the exhausted impulse, and the object stops. " This theory paved the way for Italian physicist galileo galilei (1564- 1642) and British physicist isaac newton (1643- 1727).

/kloc-in the 0 th and 7 th centuries, Galileo repeatedly put forward a statement similar to the principle of inertia in his works. 1632 and 1638, respectively, he recorded the ideal inclined plane experiment (the smoother the surface, the farther the ball rolls along the inclined plane platform) in Dialogue between Ptolemy and Copernicus and Dialogue between Mechanics and Position Motion, and concluded that "if there is a sufficiently long and absolutely smooth surface, what is it?" Therefore, the ball continues to move or until something (external force) hinders it, thus drawing the conclusion that "the object will maintain its original motion in the natural state rather than tend to stop". This conclusion breaks the old idea that "force is the reason to maintain the motion of objects" for about 1300 years since Aristotle, but it still has its influence. This conclusion is very close to the law of inertia (Newton's first law of motion is also called the law of inertia, which was first discovered by Galileo).

1644, French physicist rene descartes (1596- 1650) made up for Galileo's deficiency in philosophical principles. He clearly pointed out that unless an object is influenced by external factors, it will always remain in a state of rest or motion. He also pointed out in particular that an inertial moving object will never make itself move in a curve, but only in a straight line. He expressed this basic principle as two laws: (1) each individual particle will continue to maintain the same state until it is forced to change this state when it collides with other particles; (2) All movements are carried out in a straight line. However, Descartes did not establish the system of deducing various natural phenomena that he tried to establish, but his thoughts had a certain influence on Newton's summary of such laws. Descartes' greatest contribution is that he was the first to realize that force is the reason to change the motion state of objects.

Galileo pointed out in 1662: "An object moving at any speed can keep the same speed as long as the external factors of acceleration or deceleration are removed." Descartes also thought: "When there is no external force, particles either move at a uniform speed or stay still." Newton took this assumption as Newton's first law of motion, and further extended Galileo's thought to powerful occasions, and put forward Newton's second law of motion.

1664, under the influence of Descartes who studied collision earlier, Newton began to study the collision of two spherical inelastic rigid bodies. Newton studied the collision of two spherical rigid bodies from 1665 to 1666. His concern is not momentum and momentum conservation, but the interaction between objects. As for the collision between two rigid bodies, he proposed: "During the time when they are moving towards each other (that is, at the moment of collision), their pressure is the greatest ... Their whole movement is stopped by the pressure between them at this moment ... As long as the two objects do not yield to each other, they will bear the same fierce pressure, ... and they will be as far away from each other as before they bounce back."

1668- 1669, Dutch physicist christiaan huygens (1629- 1695), Walhees (willis) and British physicist Christopher Wren (1632-65445). Among them, Huygens' work is the most prominent. He proved that the momentum of two pieces of hardware in the same direction was constant during the collision, corrected Descartes' mistake of not considering the directionality of momentum, and put forward the conservation of momentum before and after the collision for the first time. When Newton formally put forward Newton's third law of motion, he affirmed their work and pointed out their limitations. Newton thought: "The theories of Ryan and Huygens are based on absolutely hard objects, but the ideal elastomer can get more positive results. The experiments made with non-ideal elastomers, such as pressed wooden balls, steel balls and glass balls, are consistent after eliminating errors. "

1673, French physicist marriott (1620- 1684) made a collision experiment with two simple pendulums, and skillfully measured the instantaneous velocity before and after the collision. Newton also repeated the experiment. He further discussed the influence of air resistance and the improvement method, and revised the results.

From August 65438 to August 0684, under the persuasion of British physicist Edmund Halley (1656- 1742), Newton began to write Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, systematically arranged the manuscripts and reconsidered some issues. 1685165438+10 month, forming two volumes. 1687 On July 5th, Principles was published in Latin. Newton's law of motion was put forward in the axiom or law of motion section of Introduction to Principles, which got rid of the shackles of old ideas. 17 13 years, the second edition of Principles was published; 1725, 3rd edition.

/kloc-in the second half of the 9th century, German physicist gustav robert kirchhoff (1824- 1887), Austrian and Czech physicist ernst mach (ernst mach,1838-1916) and American physicist L. Everyone discussed Newton's law of motion and put forward their own amendments. Among them, Mach made a comprehensive investigation and analysis of Newton's laws of motion in developing mechanics. Eisenbard put forward a similar new expression in his Oston expression about the law of motion of experience and Newtonian mechanics. However, some of the amendments have been questioned, including Swiss and American physicist Albert Einstein (1879- 1955).

Starting from 1905, Einstein's theory of relativity overthrew most scientific systems established by Newton. Einstein pointed out that Newton's law of motion is no longer valid when it goes beyond the scope of classical mechanics or the applicable conditions such as particle, inertial reference system, macroscopic and low-speed motion problems. This part has gone beyond the discussion of the brief history of Newton's laws of motion. For further development, please refer to the terms of special relativity and general relativity.