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Newton's first law of motion, also known as the law of inertia, states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. Galileo's experiments demonstrated that in the absence of friction, an object in motion on a horizontal plane will continue indefinitely. This law highlights the concept that a net external force is required to change the state of motion of an object, emphasizing the resistance to change known as inertia.

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Physics Project

Newton's first law of motion, also known as the law of inertia, states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. Galileo's experiments demonstrated that in the absence of friction, an object in motion on a horizontal plane will continue indefinitely. This law highlights the concept that a net external force is required to change the state of motion of an object, emphasizing the resistance to change known as inertia.

Uploaded by

rayyan2008touheed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LAW OF INERTIA

Newton’s first law of motion implies that things cannot start, stop,
or change direction all by themselves, and it requires some force
from the outside to cause such a change. This property of massive
bodies to resist changes in their state of motion is called inertia.
The first law of motion is also known as the law of inertia.
Galileo studied motion of objects on an inclined plane. Objects (i)
moving down an inclined plane accelerate, while those (ii) moving
up retard. (iii) Motion on a horizontal plane is an intermediate
situation. Galileo concluded that an object moving on a frictionless
horizontal plane must neither have acceleration nor retardation, i.e.
it should move with constant velocity.
Another experiment by Galileo leading to the same conclusion
involves a double inclined plane. A ball released from rest on one of
the planes rolls down and climbs up the other. If the planes are
smooth, the final height of the ball is nearly the same as the initial
height (a little less but never greater). In the ideal situation, when
friction is absent, the final height of the ball is the same as its initial
height.
If the slope of the second plane is decreased and the experiment
repeated, the ball will still reach the same height, but in doing so, it
will travel a longer distance. In the limiting case, when the slope of
the second plane is zero (is horizontal) the ball travels an infinite
distance. In other words, its motion never ceases. This is, of course,
an idealized situation.
In practice, the ball does come to a stop after moving a finite
distance on the horizontal plane, because of the opposing force of
friction which can never be totally eliminated. However, if there
were no friction, the ball would continue to move with a constant
velocity on the horizontal plane.
Galileo thus, arrived at a new insight on motion that had eluded
Aristotle and those who followed him. The state of rest and the
state of uniform linear motion (motion with constant velocity) are
equivalent. In both cases, there is no net force acting on the body.
It is incorrect to assume that a net force is needed to keep a body
in uniform motion. To maintain a body in uniform motion, we need
to apply an external force to encounter the frictional force, so that
the two forces sum up to zero net external force.
To summarize, if the net external force is zero, a body at rest
continues to remain at rest and a body in motion continues to move
with a uniform velocity. This property of the body is called inertia.
Inertia means ‘resistance to change’. A body does not change its
state of rest or uniform motion, unless an external force compels it
to change that state.

NEWTON’S FIRST LAW

Galileo’s simple, but revolutionary ideas dethroned Aristotelian


mechanics. A new mechanics had to be developed. This task was
accomplished almost single-handedly by Isaac Newton, one of the
greatest scientists of all times. Newton built on Galileo’s ideas and
laid the foundation of mechanics in terms of three laws of motion
that go by his name. Galileo’s law of inertia was his starting point
which he formulated as the first law of motion: Every body
continues to be in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight
line unless compelled by some external force to act otherwise.

The state of rest or uniform linear motion both imply zero


acceleration. The first law of motion can, therefore, be simply
expressed as: If the net external force on a body is zero, its
acceleration is zero. Acceleration can be non zero only if there is a
net external force on the body.

Two kinds of situations are encountered in the application of this


law in practice. In some examples, we know that the net external
force on the object is zero. In that case we can conclude that the
acceleration of the object is zero. For example, a spaceship out in
interstellar space, far from all other objects and with all its rockets
turned off, has no net external force acting on it. Its acceleration,
according to the first law, must be zero. If it is in motion, it must
continue to move with a uniform velocity.

More often, however, we do not know all the forces to begin with.
In that case, if we know that an object is unaccelerated (i.e. it is
either at rest or in uniform linear motion), we can infer from the
first law that the net external force on the object must be zero.
Gravity is everywhere. For terrestrial phenomena, in particular,
every object experiences gravitational force due to the earth. Also
objects in motion generally experience friction, viscous drag, etc. If
then, on earth, an object is at rest or in uniform linear motion, it is
not because there are no forces acting on it, but because the
various external forces cancel out i.e. add up to zero net external
force.

Consider a book at rest on a horizontal surface Fig. (5.2(a)). It is


subject to two external forces : the force due to gravity (i.e. its
weight W) acting downward and the upward force on the book by
the table, the normal force R . R is a self-adjusting force. This is an
example of the kind of situation mentioned above. The forces are
not quite known fully but the state of motion is known. We observe
the book to be at rest. Therefore, we conclude from the first law
that the magnitude of R equals that of W. A statement often
encountered is : “Since W = R, forces cancel and, therefore, the
book is at rest”. This is incorrect reasoning. The correct statement
is : “Since the book is observed to be at rest, the net external force
on it must be zero, according to the first law.

The property of inertia contained in the First law is evident in many


situations. Suppose we are standing in a stationary bus and the
driver starts the bus suddenly. We get thrown backward with a jerk.
Why ? Our feet are in touch with the floor. If there were no friction,
we would remain where we were, while the floor of the bus would
simply slip forward under our feet and the back of the bus would
hit us. However, fortunately, there is some friction between the feet
and the floor. If the start is not too sudden, i.e. if the acceleration is
moderate, the frictional force would be enough to accelerate our
feet along with the bus.

But our body is not strictly a rigid body. It is deformable, i.e. it


allows some relative displacement between different parts. What
this means is that while our feet go with the bus, the rest of the
body remains where it is due to inertia. Relative to the bus,
therefore, we are thrown backward. As soon as that happens,
however, the muscular forces on the rest of the body (by the feet)
come into play to move the body along with the bus. A similar thing
happens when the bus suddenly stops. Our feet stop due to the
friction which does not allow relative motion between the feet and
the floor of the bus. But the rest of the body continues to move
forward due to inertia. We are thrown forward. The restoring
muscular forces again come into play and bring the body to rest.

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