2k views

Why don't we learn Buridan's laws of motion?

My question is why has Jean Buridan faded into obscurity while Newton is venerated as a God by scientists? Here is a description of Buridan's impetus theory: The concept of inertia was alien to the ...
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2k views

What is the history of the energy concept and its measurement?

Could someone please explain how the concept of energy was originally conceived and how it evolved over time to our current understanding of it? Also how did people come about various ways of ...
443 views

Was there early opposition to Newton's mechanics?

Scientific theories are rarely accepted immediately. Even if the evidence for a theory is impeccable, there will be some stragglers who resist it for lack of understanding. More interesting is when a ...
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635 views

How did Huygens derive the conservation law for of kinetic energy?

In the book 'Energy - The Subtle Concept' by Energy, the Subtle Concept by Jennifer Coopersmith the author says that Huygens was the first to use the term $mv^2$ in physics. He was considering elastic ...
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465 views

When were fictitious forces introduced

Some problems in mechanics are simplified by considering the action of "fictitious forces". These appear in accelerated frames, such as circular movements. When were these first considered so? Did ...
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2k views

How did Newton establish the conservation laws in the Principia?

In the contemporary axiomatic description the conservation laws in mechanics are deduced from Noether's Theorem using the homogeneity and isotropy of space and time. How did Newton, if he did, ...
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1k views

When were the modern notions of work and energy created

Reading through Wikipedia says that Coriolis was the first to introduce the notion of work, described as "weight lifted through a height". Our modern conception of work is of a force that realizes a ...
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491 views

Who was first to integrate Newton's equations of motion to derive the conservation laws for mechanical energy and momentum?

I'm wondering who is the first person in the history who came up with an idea to integrate Newton's $F=ma$ to obtain the law of mechanical energy conservation? And When did it happen? Also I have the ...
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318 views

Was the Principia ever used as a textbook of physics for the people wanting to learn?

For example in the early days, when it was the only way to learn Newtonian mechanics? Was it good as a textbook?
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387 views

History of Energy

Can anyone suggest me some book/article explaining how and why the quantity named 'Energy' made its way into physics? I have gone through "Lectures on Physics" (Vol. 1) by R.P. Feynman and have been ...
241 views

Do other branches of modern science have interpretations like Quantum Mechanics does?

As a layperson, when one learns about Quantum Mechanics, one also learns about the various interpretations of QM-- Many Worlds, Collapse, Pilot Wave theory, etc. However, as far as I can tell (from ...
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281 views

How did people figure out the formula for mechanical work, and related it to energy?

What developments led to the definition of Work as the dot product of Force and Displacement vectors? I did some searching but couldn't find a satisfying answer. According to what I have read, the ...
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129 views

Are there any direct comments by Isaac Newton on Leibniz's living force / vis-viva?

The living force or the vis-viva is a quantity usually attributed to Leibniz (although there were a few other people who identified it as a conserved quantity in certain collisions earlier). Many ...
232 views

Reference needed about history of classical mechanics

Who discovered/ defined momentum and impulse? Please, I want suggestions about materials/ books on the development of Classical mechanics? Something like a history of experiments.
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