Mechanical Design Handbook

Sir Isaac Newton first presented his three laws of motion in the " Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis " in 1686. Let's start with the First law of Newton , which states: In the absence of external influences, a material body remains in a condition of rest or continues in uniform and rectilinear movement through inertia . This law is also known as " the law of inertia ". And what is inertia? As a matter of fact, it describes the ability of a body to preserve the initial parameters of its own motion. The formula of the Newton's second law is: F = m • a , where F = the size of the external force, m = size of inert mass, a = size of the acceleration of a body. If we rewrite this as: a = F / m it becomes obvious, that the larger the mass of a body, the greater external effort is required to apply the same acceleration to it. Actually, inertial mass here acts as a measure of its own internal resistance to the influence of the external force. The third...

Let us go back to the legend of Newton and the apple. From the work on statics we will find that the apple stays on the tree as long as the apple stalk is strong enough to support the weight of the apple. As the apple grows there will come a point when the weight is too great and so the stalk will break and the apple falls. The quantity that is being added to the apple as it grows is mass. Sometimes this is confused with weight but there have now been many examples of fruits and seeds being grown inside orbiting spacecraft where every object is weightless and would float if not anchored down. Mass is the amount of matter in a body, measured in kilograms (kg). The reason that the apple hangs downwards on the tree, and eventually falls downwards, is that there is a force of attraction between the earth and any object that is close to it. This is the gravitational force and is directed towards the centre of the earth. We experience this as a vertical, downward force. The apple is therefor...

When Newton first published these laws back in the seventeenth century he caused a great deal of controversy. Even the top scientists and mathematicians of the day found difficulty in understanding what he was getting at and hardly anyone could follow his reasoning. Today we have little difficulty with the topic because we are familiar with concepts such as gravity and acceleration from watching astronauts floating around in space or satellites orbiting the earth. We can even experience them for ourselves directly on the roller coaster rides at amusement parks. Newton lived in the second half of the seventeenth century and was born into a well-to-do family in Lincolnshire. He proved to be a genius at a very early age and was appointed to a Professorship at Cambridge University at the remarkably young age of 21. He spent his time investigating such things as astronomy, optics and heat, but the thing for which he is best remembered is his work on gravity and the laws of motion. Fo...