Lecture 17: On the Shoulders of Giants: Isaac Newton and the Laws of Motion

The work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo all contributed to a new way of looking at the motions in the heavens, but did not explain why they move that way. Enter Isaac Newton, who within a few years swept away the last vestiges of the Aristotelian view of the world and replaced with a new, powerfully predictive synthesis, in which all motions, in the heavens and on the Earth, obeyed three simple, mathematical laws of motion. This lecture introduces Newton's Three Laws of Motion and their consequences. We are now ready, next week, to examine the role of Gravity and finally explain the orbits of the planets. Recorded 2006 Oct 13 in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.