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A Source Book in Physics

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Author: Isaac Newton | Date: 1803

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Biographical Summary

Isaac Newton

Newton was prepared for the university at a school in the neighboring town of Grantham, and in 1661 he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in January 1665, was elected a Major Fellow and received his Master of Arts degree in 1668. His residence in Cambridge had been interrupted in 1665 and 1666 by the prevalence of the plague, which forced him to retire to his home at Woolsthorpe. It was in those years that his genius developed. In them he invented the fluxional calculus, discovered the composition of white light, conceived the idea of universal gravitation, and probably discovered its law. Though he made no public announcement of these discoveries, yet his abilities in mathematics and physics were recognized and in 1669, when his teacher and friend Barrow resigned the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, he was appointed in his stead.

In the years which followed, which were passed quietly in Cambridge, Newton published much of his work on optics, and developed his thoughts on gravitation, which were in 1687 announced in Principia. The political disturbances of the period led to his serving as a representative of the university in the Convention Parliament of 1689. In 1692 he suffered from a nervous breakdown, which showed itself in an attitude of suspicion and dislike of some of his best friends. From this he seems to have entirely recovered in the course of a year. He never afterward did any extensive piece of scientific work, devoting most of his thought and work to chronology and theology.

Newton apparently became dissatisfied with his secluded life in the university, and made several efforts to obtain public employment. At last, in 1695, through the good offices of his friend Charles Montague, he was appointed Warden of the Mint, and removed to London. In this office he rendered valuable service in organizing and carrying through the reformation of the coinage. After this special task was accomplished, he was made Master of the Mint, and held this position for life. In 1701 he was sent as the representative of Cambridge University to the short-lived Parliament of that year. In 1703 he was elected to the presidency of the Royal Society and continued in that office by annual reelection, until his death.

Newton died in Kensington on March 20, 1727. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Historical Summary

The Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, from which the following extracts are taken, is one of the greatest monuments of the human intellect. In it Newton presents a system of mechanics which rests upon foundations broad enough to serve for all subsequent developments and he applies this system to the discussion of the movements of the heavenly bodies under the law of gravitation. The extracts here given contain, first, the definitions upon which his work is based. His discussion of absolute space and time is inserted because of the interest excited in it by the theory of relativity. The second extract contains the laws of motion and particularly Newton’s discussion of the third law, which was his own contribution to the subject. The test of the third law by the collision of swinging pendulums is given as an illustration of Newton’s experimental ability.

The translation is by Motte in the edition published in 1803.

Physics

NEWTON

Definitions

Name: A Source Book in Physics - Definitions
Author: Isaac Newton

Definition I

The quantity of matter is the measure of the same, arising from its density and bulk conjunctly.

Thus air of a double density, in a double space, is quadruple in quantity; in a triple space, sextuple in quantity. The same thing is to be understood of snow, and fine dust or powders, that are condensed by compression or liquefaction; and of all bodies that are by any cause whatever differently condensed. I have no regard in this place to a medium, if any such there is, that freely pervades the interstices between the parts of bodies. It is this quantity that I mean hereafter everywhere under the name of body or mass. And the same is known by the weight of each body; for it is proportional to the weight, as I have found by experiments on pendulums, very accurately made, which shall be shewn hereafter.

Definition II

The quantity of motion is the measure of the same, arising from the velocity and quantity of matter conjunctly.

The motion of the whole is the sum of the motions of all the parts; and therefore in a body double in quantity, with equal velocity, the motion is double; with twice the velocity, it is quadruple.

Definition III

The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to persevere in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a right line.

This force is ever proportional to the body whose force it is; and differs nothing from the inactivity of the mass, but in our manner of conceiving it. A body, from the inactivity of matter, is not without difficulty put out of its state of rest or motion. Upon which account, this vis insita, may, by a most significant name, be called vis inertiae, or force of inactivity. But a body exerts this force only, when another force, impressed upon it, endeavours to change its condition; and the exercise of this force may be considered both as resistance and impulse; it is resistance, in so far as the body, for maintaining its present state, withstands the force impressed; it is impulse, in so far as the body, by not easily giving way to the impressed force of another, endeavours to change the state of that other. Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion; but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.

Definition IV

An impressed force is an action exerted upon a body, in order to change its state, either of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a right line.

This force consists in the action only; and remains no longer in the body, when the action is over. For a body maintains every new state it acquires, by its vis inertiae only. Impressed forces are of different origins; as from percussion, from pressure, from centripetal force.

Definition V

A centripetal force is that by which bodies are drawn or impelled, or any way tend, towards a point as to a centre.

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Definition VI

The absolute quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the efficacy of the cause that propagates it from the centre, through the spaces round about.

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Definition VII

The accelerative quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the velocity which it generates in a given time.

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Definition VIII

The motive quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the motion which it generates in a given time.

Thus the weight is greater in a greater body, less in a less body; and, in the same body, it is greater near to the earth, and less at remoter distances. This sort of quantity is the centripetency, or propension of the whole body towards the centre, or, as I may say, its weight; and it is always known by the quantity of an equal and contrary force just sufficient to hinder the descent of the body.

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Scholium

Hitherto I have laid down the definitions of such words as are less known, and explained the sense in which I would have them to be understood in the following discourse. I do not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the vulgar conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which, it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

I. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year.

II. Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute space; which our senses determine by its position to bodies; and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space; such is the dimension of a subterraneous, an aereal, or celestial space, determined by its position in respect of the earth. Absolute and relative space, are the same in figure and magnitude but they do not remain always numerically the same. For if the earth, for instance, moves, a space of our air, which relatively and in respect of the earth remains always the same, will at one time be one part of the absolute space into which the air passes; at another time it will be another part of the same, and so, absolutely understood, it will be perpetually mutable.

III. Place is a part of space which a body takes up, and is according to the space, either absolute or relative. I say, a part of space; not the situation, nor the external surface of the body. For the places of equal solids are always equal; but their superficies, by reason of their dissimilar figures, are often unequal. Positions properly have no quantity, nor are they so much the places themselves, as the properties of places. The motion of the whole is the same thing with the sum of the motions of the parts; that is, the translation of the whole, out of its place, is the same thing with the sum of the translations of the parts out of their places; and therefore the place of the whole is the same thing with the sum of the places of the parts, and for that reason, it is internal, and in the whole body.

IV. Absolute motion is the translation of a body from one absolute place into another; and relative motion, the translation from one relative place into another. Thus in a ship under sail, the relative place of a body is that part of the ship which the body possesses; or that part of its cavity which the body fills, and which therefore moves together with the ship: and relative rest is the continuance of the body in the same part of the ship, or of its cavity. But real, absolute rest, is the continuance of the body in the same part of that immovable space, in which the ship itself, its cavity, and all that it contains, is moved. Wherefore, if the earth is really at rest, the body, which relatively rests in the ship, will really and absolutely move with the same velocity which the ship has on the earth. But if the earth also moves, the true and absolute motion of the body will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space; partly from the relative motion of the ship on the earth; and if the body moves also relatively in the ship; its true motion will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space, and partly from the relative motions as well of the ship on the earth, as of the body in the ship; and from these relative motions will arise the relative motion of the body on the earth. As if that part of the earth, where the ship is, was truly moved toward the east, with a velocity of 10010 parts; while the ship itself, with a fresh gale, and full sails, is carried towards the west, with a velocity expressed by 10 of those parts; but a sailor walks in the ship towards the east, with I part of the said velocity; then the sailor will be moved truly in immovable space towards the east, with a velocity of 10001 parts, and relatively on the earth towards the west, with a velocity of 9 of those parts.

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The effects which distinguish absolute from relative motion are, the forces of receding from the axis of circular motion. For there are no such forces in a circular motion purely relative, but in a true and absolute circular motion, they are greater or less, according to the quantity of the motion. If a vessel, hung by a long cord, is so often turned about that the cord is strongly twisted, then filled with water, and held at rest together with the water; after, by the sudden action of another force, it is whirled about the contrary way, and while the cord is untwisting itself, the vessel continues for some time in this motion; the surface of the water will at first be plain, as before the vessel began to move; but the vessel, by gradually communicating its motion to the water, will make it begin sensibly to revolve, and recede by little and little from the middle, and ascend to the sides of the vessel, forming itself into a concave figure (as I have experienced), and the swifter the motion becomes, the higher will the water rise, till at last, performing its revolutions in the same times with the vessel, it becomes relatively at rest in it. This ascent of the water shows its endeavour to recede from the axis of its motion; and the true and absolute circular motion of the water, which is here directly contrary to the relative, discovers itself, and may be measured by this endeavour. At first, when the relative motion of the water in the vessel was greatest, it produced no endeavour to recede from the axis; the water showed no tendency to the circumference, nor any ascent towards the sides of the vessel, but remained of a plain surface, and therefore its true circular motion had not yet begun. But afterwards, when the relative motion of the water had decreased, the ascent thereof towards the sides of the vessel proved its endeavour to recede from the axis; and this endeavour showed the real circular motion of the water perpetually increasing, till it had acquired its greatest quantity, when the water rested relatively in the vessel. And therefore this endeavour does not depend upon any translation of the water in respect of the ambient bodies, nor can true circular motion be defined by such translation. There is only one real circular motion of any one revolving body, corresponding to only one power of endeavouring to recede from its axis of motion, as its proper and adequate effect; but relative motions, in one and the same body, are innumerable, according to the various relations it bears to external bodies, and like other relations, are altogether destitute of any real effect, any otherwise than they may perhaps partake of that one only true motion. And therefore in their system who suppose that our heavens, revolving below the sphere of the fixed stars, carry the planets along with them; the several parts of those heavens, and the planets, which are indeed relatively at rest in their heavens, do yet really move. For they change their position one to another (which never happens to bodies truly at rest), and being carried together with their heavens, partake of their motions, and as parts of revolving wholes, endeavour to recede from the axis of their motions.

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Chicago: Isaac Newton, "Definitions," A Source Book in Physics, trans. Motte in A Source Book in Physics, ed. William Frances Magie (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), 30–36. Original Sources, accessed November 23, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6FQ8E8WHH4JWCCV.

MLA: Newton, Isaac. "Definitions." A Source Book in Physics, translted by Motte, in A Source Book in Physics, edited by William Frances Magie, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1935, pp. 30–36. Original Sources. 23 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6FQ8E8WHH4JWCCV.

Harvard: Newton, I, 'Definitions' in A Source Book in Physics, trans. . cited in 1935, A Source Book in Physics, ed. , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp.30–36. Original Sources, retrieved 23 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=6FQ8E8WHH4JWCCV.