Newton And His Laws
Why is Newton the father of physics??
What great jobs did he do so as to call him so??
If you read the book by Stephen Hawking... A Brief History of Time...where in he writes in about two pages about every scientist...when he writes about Isaac.
He starts,
Isaac Newton was not a pleasant man. His relations with other academics were notorious, with most of his later life spent embroiled in heated disputes...
He goes describing the problems that existed between Isaac and Flamsteed (an astronomer), the famous Gottfried Leibniz (a German philosopher)
Following the death of Leibniz, Newton is reported to have declared that he had great satisfaction in "breaking Leibniz' heart"
He concludes, "With the lucrative post of The Warden of the royal mint, he used his talents for deviousness and vitriol in a more socially acceptable way, successfully conducting a campaign against counterfeiting, even sending several men to their death on their gallows..."
Should such a person be called as "The father of Physics”??
Should not "the Father of Physics" have some basic Morale...??
Even centuries later, we still continue to call him the father of physics... Why??
What did he do after all??
Three laws about something called "Force" ... which he himself created.
Then additional statements on "this thing" that he himself had created.
Does he deserve to be called so??
Are his laws really that great...??
Well, actually they are!!
Now let me try to give a closer view of his three laws....
The First one
==========
Every object continues to be in its state of rest or of uniform motion till disturbed by an external Agency.
The meaning of this thing is clear… is it not??
Why should this thing be stated as a law…??
Well… is it not obvious??
Now, let me take you four centuries back…
I take a ball and roll it on a floor.
It starts moving with uniform velocity and slowly the velocity decreases and eventually it stops moving.
I question you, “Can you see… my law is not obvious. Where can you see this in reality?”
(If I had questioned you, “Why does this stop? Is it not against my law?” our discussion would not have continued, but stopped at some place…
You would have said, “This is called friction”
I would have said, “My dear, I know what is distance, time, mass, velocity, temperature, momentum, etc…
I have never word this word in my entire life…”
Actually these quantities were defined earlier, but this “friction” thing … nobody knew that something existed of that sort.)
I repeat, “Can you see… my law is not obvious. Where can you see this in reality?”
Some philosopher comes up with a new theory and says, “Anything is this material world is opposed by something else… So the road does not allow your ball to move”
Then I say, “Ok… let me try to reduce the opposition offered. I go and polish the road. Now, the ball comes to a stop after a greater deal of time. Next, I use a glass road and see the time increasing.”
So, when will the ball never stop…??
I go to my dream and ask God to construct a road which can offer no resistance.
Then I roll a ball and see that it never stops…
Who is a physicist? One who sits in a laboratory and does tests and tries to come to conclusions… definitely not…
Anybody can become a physicist if he/she can see beyond what others see…
Newton was…
This first law is actually my most favourite among all Physics laws…
It requires more than a genius to imagine such things…
Now, the Second Law
================
Even now, many X class students ask me, how did the proportionality constant, k, in
F= kma
Becomes unity and the equation simplifies to F=ma
This is a simple issue, but the second law has more to say.
The first law states clearly that there is some resistance. Newton calls this resistance, as Force. As I have stated earlier, nobody then knew what Force meant. So, it was Newton to explain what this word meant. The first law is a quantitative definition of Force. So, the second law must be the quantitative definition.
Force directly varies as rate of change of momentum.
What is momentum? Product of mass and velocity … is that it??
As we have a feel for masses, lengths, so we must have a feel for this quantity also.
Imagine that you are walking right in the middle of the road; a cyclist riding at his maximum speed comes and hits you and stops because of the impact. You get up with a few bruises on your head and curse that fellow.
Now, again imagine that you are walking right in the middle of the road; a heavy truck is heading towards you. He sees you, reduces the speed and still manages to hit you and stops because of the impact. You fall on the ground, your head might bleed and you are taken to the hospital and again finally end up cursing that driver.
For the last time (after this you would not be alive), imagine you are walking right in the middle of the road; a heavy truck is heading towards you. He does not care to decelerate and hits you and stops because of the impact. You would not be alive to curse him!!
That’s momentum for you. I think you would not start off an argument with me if I term this momentum thing as “quantity of motion possessed by the object”
Now, again go back to the Second Law…
Over what time interval is this impact …??
Again as it was with the First Law, this too becomes obvious… is it not??
This gives a quantitative definition for force.
Coming to the “k” issue… As I had said earlier, it was Newton who had the task of defining what Force meant.
IT WAS HIS CHOICE TO TELL WHAT 1 UNIT OF FORCE WAS.
He could have very well told, 1 unit of force is what is required to accelerate steadily a body of mass 16.123556434 kg (this was already defined) through a distance of 12.684638 m (so was this unit) in one leap year (so was this) from rest. Then the constant would have taken an ugly value.
As it was his choice, he chooses to be simple.
Accelerate steadily an object mass 1 kg through 0.5 metre in 1 second so that the acceleration amounts to 1 metre per second squared. The value “unity” has a beauty in itself… is it not??
Now, if we consider the Gravitational law, all quantities were defined already. So, the quantity G takes an ugly value, indeed!!
Now finally,
The Third Law
Every force has always an equal and opposite reaction.
While the first gave a quantitative definition, the second a quantitative definition, what extra information does this give??
Now, let us recall the philosopher who had contacted us a little before….
This also becomes clear…
This explains us that forces always exist in pairs.
Please note that a force and its reaction never act on the same body.
If anywhere you read that centrifugal and centripetal forces form an action-reaction pair, then you can curse that book as they both act on the same body.
(I have read books which give such an impression.)
Why would not you call a person who has given three ingenious laws to the world of Physics as its father??
Even Stephen Hawking says, his book Principia Mathematica is the most influential book EVER written in physics
In my opinion, even for his first law, he deserves to be called so. I repeat-it requires much much much more than a genius to make such a statement.
What great jobs did he do so as to call him so??
If you read the book by Stephen Hawking... A Brief History of Time...where in he writes in about two pages about every scientist...when he writes about Isaac.
He starts,
Isaac Newton was not a pleasant man. His relations with other academics were notorious, with most of his later life spent embroiled in heated disputes...
He goes describing the problems that existed between Isaac and Flamsteed (an astronomer), the famous Gottfried Leibniz (a German philosopher)
Following the death of Leibniz, Newton is reported to have declared that he had great satisfaction in "breaking Leibniz' heart"
He concludes, "With the lucrative post of The Warden of the royal mint, he used his talents for deviousness and vitriol in a more socially acceptable way, successfully conducting a campaign against counterfeiting, even sending several men to their death on their gallows..."
Should such a person be called as "The father of Physics”??
Should not "the Father of Physics" have some basic Morale...??
Even centuries later, we still continue to call him the father of physics... Why??
What did he do after all??
Three laws about something called "Force" ... which he himself created.
Then additional statements on "this thing" that he himself had created.
Does he deserve to be called so??
Are his laws really that great...??
Well, actually they are!!
Now let me try to give a closer view of his three laws....
The First one
==========
Every object continues to be in its state of rest or of uniform motion till disturbed by an external Agency.
The meaning of this thing is clear… is it not??
Why should this thing be stated as a law…??
Well… is it not obvious??
Now, let me take you four centuries back…
I take a ball and roll it on a floor.
It starts moving with uniform velocity and slowly the velocity decreases and eventually it stops moving.
I question you, “Can you see… my law is not obvious. Where can you see this in reality?”
(If I had questioned you, “Why does this stop? Is it not against my law?” our discussion would not have continued, but stopped at some place…
You would have said, “This is called friction”
I would have said, “My dear, I know what is distance, time, mass, velocity, temperature, momentum, etc…
I have never word this word in my entire life…”
Actually these quantities were defined earlier, but this “friction” thing … nobody knew that something existed of that sort.)
I repeat, “Can you see… my law is not obvious. Where can you see this in reality?”
Some philosopher comes up with a new theory and says, “Anything is this material world is opposed by something else… So the road does not allow your ball to move”
Then I say, “Ok… let me try to reduce the opposition offered. I go and polish the road. Now, the ball comes to a stop after a greater deal of time. Next, I use a glass road and see the time increasing.”
So, when will the ball never stop…??
I go to my dream and ask God to construct a road which can offer no resistance.
Then I roll a ball and see that it never stops…
Who is a physicist? One who sits in a laboratory and does tests and tries to come to conclusions… definitely not…
Anybody can become a physicist if he/she can see beyond what others see…
Newton was…
This first law is actually my most favourite among all Physics laws…
It requires more than a genius to imagine such things…
Now, the Second Law
================
Even now, many X class students ask me, how did the proportionality constant, k, in
F= kma
Becomes unity and the equation simplifies to F=ma
This is a simple issue, but the second law has more to say.
The first law states clearly that there is some resistance. Newton calls this resistance, as Force. As I have stated earlier, nobody then knew what Force meant. So, it was Newton to explain what this word meant. The first law is a quantitative definition of Force. So, the second law must be the quantitative definition.
Force directly varies as rate of change of momentum.
What is momentum? Product of mass and velocity … is that it??
As we have a feel for masses, lengths, so we must have a feel for this quantity also.
Imagine that you are walking right in the middle of the road; a cyclist riding at his maximum speed comes and hits you and stops because of the impact. You get up with a few bruises on your head and curse that fellow.
Now, again imagine that you are walking right in the middle of the road; a heavy truck is heading towards you. He sees you, reduces the speed and still manages to hit you and stops because of the impact. You fall on the ground, your head might bleed and you are taken to the hospital and again finally end up cursing that driver.
For the last time (after this you would not be alive), imagine you are walking right in the middle of the road; a heavy truck is heading towards you. He does not care to decelerate and hits you and stops because of the impact. You would not be alive to curse him!!
That’s momentum for you. I think you would not start off an argument with me if I term this momentum thing as “quantity of motion possessed by the object”
Now, again go back to the Second Law…
Over what time interval is this impact …??
Again as it was with the First Law, this too becomes obvious… is it not??
This gives a quantitative definition for force.
Coming to the “k” issue… As I had said earlier, it was Newton who had the task of defining what Force meant.
IT WAS HIS CHOICE TO TELL WHAT 1 UNIT OF FORCE WAS.
He could have very well told, 1 unit of force is what is required to accelerate steadily a body of mass 16.123556434 kg (this was already defined) through a distance of 12.684638 m (so was this unit) in one leap year (so was this) from rest. Then the constant would have taken an ugly value.
As it was his choice, he chooses to be simple.
Accelerate steadily an object mass 1 kg through 0.5 metre in 1 second so that the acceleration amounts to 1 metre per second squared. The value “unity” has a beauty in itself… is it not??
Now, if we consider the Gravitational law, all quantities were defined already. So, the quantity G takes an ugly value, indeed!!
Now finally,
The Third Law
Every force has always an equal and opposite reaction.
While the first gave a quantitative definition, the second a quantitative definition, what extra information does this give??
Now, let us recall the philosopher who had contacted us a little before….
This also becomes clear…
This explains us that forces always exist in pairs.
Please note that a force and its reaction never act on the same body.
If anywhere you read that centrifugal and centripetal forces form an action-reaction pair, then you can curse that book as they both act on the same body.
(I have read books which give such an impression.)
Why would not you call a person who has given three ingenious laws to the world of Physics as its father??
Even Stephen Hawking says, his book Principia Mathematica is the most influential book EVER written in physics
In my opinion, even for his first law, he deserves to be called so. I repeat-it requires much much much more than a genius to make such a statement.
posted by Shankar at 3:49 AM
1 comments
