Who was Newton?

Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727), President of the Royal Society, was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. He was regarded as one of the greatest figures in the history of science.

Fig.1: Sir Isaac Newton

His treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion elaborated in the following, which laid the groundwork for classical mechanics.
Briefly stated, the three laws are:

1. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force.
   
2. Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.
   
3. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
   

Newton was also the first to show that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies is governed by the same set of natural laws. The law of gravity became Newton's best-known discovery. He warned against using it to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." In mechanics, Newton also markedly enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of color based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. Newton notably argued that light is composed of particles. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and proposed a theory of the origin of stars. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series. And in conclusion, his ideas were so creative that Queen Anne knighted him in 1705.

Newton’s First Law

First of all let’s discuss the question what is "a law of science"? So a “law” is an attempt to describe the fundamental nature of the universe. It is a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature like Newton’s Laws. The concept "law of science" is an inheritance from the earliest days of science when it was believed that the universe operated in the way it did because God established natural laws that dictated how things should act. In other words, laws existed in the universe from its creation; it is impossible to explain why they are so, however, they impose order in the universe. This order may hint about the existence of God where Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Fig.2 is an artistic demonstration of God behind the laws prepared by the author. It consists of part of the original artwork Creation of the Sun and Moon by Michelangelo showing God, on which Newton 1st Law of Fig.8 elaborated below was “transplanted”.

Fig.2: God behind the laws

However, although the laws existed in the universe as from its creation, 12 to 14 billion years ago according to the Big Bang model, it was only about 300 years ago that Newton formulated his four laws elaborated below. Once these laws were formulated, it became possible to design and construct vehicles that move on earth as well as satellites that are launched into space and move there safely due to a successful balance between his 1st Law and the Universal Law of Gravity. Legend tells that seeing an apple fall, gave Newton the idea that gravity, the force that keeps us bound to the earth, also controls the motion of planets and stars.
We will now concentrate on “Newton’s First Law” often called “The Law of Inertia”. According to this law “Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform speed in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces acting on it.” This means that there is a natural tendency of objects to keep on doing what they're doing. In the absence of an unbalanced force, an object in motion will maintain this state of motion.
There are many ways one can think about stating Newton’s First Law such as (HowManyWays.html):

1. Things tend to keep on doing what they're already doing.
2. An object at rest tends to stay at rest; an object in motion tends to stay in motion.
3. Objects don't like to accelerate.
4. An object at rest will stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts on it. An object in motion will move at constant velocity unless an unbalanced force object's velocity stays the same.
5. No force means no acceleration.
6. If no forces act on an object (or if all of the forces that do act cancel each other out), then the object will not: speed up, slow down or change directions.
7. Whatever an object is doing, that's what it wants to do.
8. Objects don't change their velocity by themselves.
9. If you see an object at rest, or moving in a straight line at constant speed, then you can conclude that either no force are pushing on the object, or (more likely) all of the forces that are pushing or pulling on the object cancel each other out.
10. If nothing pushes on you, you won't accelerate or decelerate.
11. Object continue to do what they are doing unless acted upon by an outside force.
    

In the following we will demonstrate Newton’s First Law by artworks. Fig.3 is the first one demonstrating the law. The LHS artwork was painted by the Polish surrealist Jacek Yerka (b.1952) where the RHS artwork by the Belgium surrealist Rene Magritte (1898-1967).

Fig.3: Newton’s First Law. Left - body in motion. Right - body in rest

Fig.4: Newton’s First Law. Left - bodies in motion. Right - body in rest

Fig.4 is another demonstration of Newton’s First Law. On the LHS is an artwork by Marc Chagall (1887-1985), a Russian-born French painter and stained glass artist. On the LHS as well as Fig.5 are artworks by Fernando Botero (b.1932), a neo-figurative Colombian artist.

Fig.5: Newton’s First Law. Left - bodies in motion. Right - bodies in rest

Fig.6 left demonstrates football players painted by Henry Rousseau (1844-1910), a French Post-Impressionist painter. The interesting characteristic of the artwork is that all four images are those of Rousseau. On the right side is a picture the author photographed in Barcelona. It is a real man totally stagnant for a long period of time.

Fig.6: Newton’s First Law. Left - bodies in motion. Right - body in rest

Tullio Pericoli (b.1936), an Italian caricaturist and illustrator, painted Fig.7 where the moving image on the left is that of Albert Einstein.

Fig.7: Newton’s First Law. Left - body in motion. Right - body in rest

Fig.8: Newton’s First Law. Left - bodies in motion. Right - bodies in rest

Fig.9: Newton’s First Law. Left-body in motion. Right-body in rest

Fig.9 is a sculpture by David Fein born in 1970 in Moscow and immigrated to
Israel in 1990. The author photographed it in Hollon, Israel.

Fig.10: Newton’s First Law. Top - bodies in motion. Bottom - bodies in rest

So far we have treated cases having a numerical character, namely speed > 0 and speed = 0. In the following, cases are demonstrated which are related qualitatively to Newton’s First Law. For example, on the left side of Fig.11an image seems continuously screaming whereas on the right the image looks quiet all the time. Fig.12 painted by Fernando Botero is quite similar in the sense of a qualitative description of the law.

Fig.11: Newton’s First Law demonstrated qualitatively

Fig.12: Newton’s First Law demonstrated qualitatively

Fig.13, left-hand-side, is the well-known sculpture “The Thinker” by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) where the picture on the right demonstrates a person persisting in just looking. Both seem persisting in their specific situation.

Fig.13: Newton’s First Law demonstrated qualitatively

Fig.14: Newton’s First Law demonstrated qualitatively

Fig.14 concludes Newton’s First Law. While looking continuously on the left picture, one sees in the center either a step or a cube. The latter is stacked at the connection between a ceiling and the two walls perpendicular to it. These elements, step or a cube, are continuously changing, namely, motion is created in the observer’s brain. In the right picture, the central element was taken out, creating a situation of no motion versus time.

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