Overview: Newton's Laws

Newton's laws are more than mathematical equations. They code a number of basic conceptual ideas in how to think about motion and they provide a framework in which to build models of the physical world in a way that lets us understand how and why things move.

Here are links to the discussions of the most important principles and foothold ideas.

• Physical content of Newton's Laws — In the sections that follow from the page we build the fundamental conceptual content of Newton's laws starting from everyday experience.
• Formulation of Newton's Laws as foothold principles — In this section we  transform our conceptual ideas into usable mathematical form,
  • Quantifying impulse and force — Force: the concept responsible for changing motion and how we measure it
  • Newton 0 — Focusing on objects and what is happening to them
  • Newton's 1st law — Specifying what motions need a cause
  • Newton's 2nd law — The law that shows how forces cause changes of motion
  • Newton's 3rd law — How interactions create forces.
• Center of mass —We often treat objects as if we could not pay any attention to their internal structure. This section explains (after the fact) to what extent we can get away with that.

These fundamental principles form the basis for our treatment of the motion of objects, how solids, liquids, and gases behave, and will provide the starting point for our understanding of work and energy.

Joe Redish 1/28/19