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The next to last sentence has all the reasons in a nutshell:"Buridan used the theory of impetus to give an accurate qualitative account of the motion of projectiles but he ultimately saw his theory as a correction to Aristotle". Buridan's account, as Aristotle's or Avicenna's before him, was qualitative, he never put it into equations, which would allow for predictions and experimental verification. It only applied to projectiles, there was no notion of universally valid dynamical laws that governed motion in general, so no "laws of motion". There was a separate "circular impetus" to explain celestial motions, and "natural places" to explain gravity on Earth. And finally, being a correction to Aristotle, Buridan's theory retained its central problem, the murky and/or erroneous relation between speed and force, with little understanding of the role of acceleration.

This being said, I do agree that the impetus theory played a positive role in the genesis of classical mechanics, and deserves to be better known. It directly influenced Descartes, for example, and played a role in the discovery of the conservation of momentum law. Its roots can be traced back to Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, and medieval authors learned it from a commentary of John Philoponus, who by the way also anticipated the modern idea of empirical inquiry. Avicenna introduced the idea that projectile impetus can be self-degrading, which makes his description comparable to the modern one in the decelerating frame attached to the projectile. Franco's paper gives a good overview of the history of the impetus theory.

The next to last sentence has all the reasons in a nutshell:"Buridan used the theory of impetus to give an accurate qualitative account of the motion of projectiles but he ultimately saw his theory as a correction to Aristotle". Buridan's account, as Aristotle's or Avicenna's before him, was qualitative, he never put it into equations, which would allow for predictions and experimental verification. It only applied to projectiles, there was no notion of universally valid dynamical laws that governed motion in general, so no "laws of motion". There was a separate "circular impetus" to explain celestial motions, and "natural places" to explain gravity on Earth. And finally, being a correction to Aristotle, Buridan's theory retained its central problem, the murky and/or erroneous relation between speed and force, with little understanding of the role of acceleration.

This being said, I do agree that the impetus theory played a positive role in the genesis of classical mechanics, and deserves to be better known. It directly influenced Descartes, for example, and played a role in the discovery of the conservation of momentum law. Its roots can be traced back to Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, and medieval authors learned it from a commentary of John Philoponus, who by the way also anticipated the modern idea of empirical inquiry. Avicenna introduced the idea that projectile impetus can be self-degrading, which makes his description comparable to the modern one in the decelerating frame attached to the projectile. Franco's paper gives a good overview of the history of the impetus theory.

The next to last sentence has all the reasons in a nutshell:"Buridan used the theory of impetus to give an accurate qualitative account of the motion of projectiles but he ultimately saw his theory as a correction to Aristotle". Buridan's account, as Aristotle's or Avicenna's before him, was qualitative, he never put it into equations, which would allow for predictions and experimental verification. It only applied to projectiles, there was no notion of universally valid dynamical laws that governed motion in general, so no "laws of motion". There was a separate "circular impetus" to explain celestial motions, and "natural places" to explain gravity on Earth. And finally, being a correction to Aristotle, Buridan's theory retained its central problem, the murky and/or erroneous relation between speed and force, with little understanding of the role of acceleration.

This being said, I do agree that the impetus theory played a positive role in the genesis of classical mechanics, and deserves to be better known. It directly influenced Descartes, for example, and played a role in the discovery of the conservation of momentum law. Its roots can be traced back to Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, and medieval authors learned it from the commentary of John Philoponus, who by the way also anticipated the modern idea of empirical inquiry. Avicenna introduced the idea that projectile impetus can be self-degrading, which makes his description comparable to the modern one in the decelerating frame attached to the projectile. Franco's paper gives a good overview of the history of the impetus theory.

The next to last sentence has all the reasons in a nutshell:"Buridan used the theory of impetus to give an accurate qualitative account of the motion of projectiles but he ultimately saw his theory as a correction to Aristotle". Buridan's account, as Aristotle's or Avicenna's before him, was qualitative, he never put it into equations, which would allow for predictions and experimental verification. It only applied to projectiles, there was no notion of universally valid dynamical laws that governed motion in general, so no "laws of motion". There was a separate "circular impetus" to explain celestial motions, and "natural places" to explain gravity on Earth. And finally, being a correction to Aristotle, Buridan's theory retained its central problem, the murky and/or erroneous relation between speed and force, with little understanding of the role of acceleration.

This being said, I do agree that the impetus theory played a positive role in the genesis of classical mechanics, and deserves to be better known. It directly influenced Descartes, for example, and played a role in the discovery of the conservation of momentum law. Its roots can be traced back to Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, and medieval authors learned it from a commentary of John Philoponus, who by the way also anticipated the modern idea of empirical inquiry. Avicenna introduced the idea that projectile impetus can be self-degrading, which makes his description comparable to the modern one in the decelerating frame attached to the projectile. Franco's paper gives a good overview of the history of the impetus theory.

This sentence has all the reasons in a nutshell:"Buridan used the theory of impetus to give an accurate qualitative account of the motion of projectiles but he ultimately saw his theory as a correction to Aristotle". Buridan's account, as Aristotle's or Avicenna's before him, was qualitative, he never put it into equations which would allow for predictions and experimental verification. It only applied to projectiles, there was no notion of universally valid dynamical laws that governed motion in general, so no "laws of motion". There was a separate "circular impetus" to explain celestial motions, and "natural tendencies" to explain gravity on Earth. And finally, being a correction to Aristotle, Buridan's theory retained its central problem, the murky and/or erroneous relation between speed and force, with little understanding of the role of acceleration.

This being said, I do agree that the impetus theory played a positive role in the genesis of classical mechanics, and deserves to be better known. It directly influenced Descartes, for example, and played a role in the discovery of the conservation of momentum law. Its roots can be traced back to Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, and medieval authors learned it from the commentary of John Philoponus, who by the way also anticipated the modern idea of empirical inquiry. Avicenna introduced the idea that projectile impetus can be self-degrading, which makes his description comparable to the modern one in the decelerating frame attached to the projectile. Franco's paper gives a good overview of the history of the impetus theory.

The next to last sentence has all the reasons in a nutshell:"Buridan used the theory of impetus to give an accurate qualitative account of the motion of projectiles but he ultimately saw his theory as a correction to Aristotle". Buridan's account, as Aristotle's or Avicenna's before him, was qualitative, he never put it into equations, which would allow for predictions and experimental verification. It only applied to projectiles, there was no notion of universally valid dynamical laws that governed motion in general, so no "laws of motion". There was a separate "circular impetus" to explain celestial motions, and "natural places" to explain gravity on Earth. And finally, being a correction to Aristotle, Buridan's theory retained its central problem, the murky and/or erroneous relation between speed and force, with little understanding of the role of acceleration.

This being said, I do agree that the impetus theory played a positive role in the genesis of classical mechanics, and deserves to be better known. It directly influenced Descartes, for example, and played a role in the discovery of the conservation of momentum law. Its roots can be traced back to Hipparchus, the father of astronomy, and medieval authors learned it from the commentary of John Philoponus, who by the way also anticipated the modern idea of empirical inquiry. Avicenna introduced the idea that projectile impetus can be self-degrading, which makes his description comparable to the modern one in the decelerating frame attached to the projectile. Franco's paper gives a good overview of the history of the impetus theory.