Linked Questions

1 vote
3 answers
656 views

Why Is Newton's second law $F=ma$, and how did Newton "Discover it"? [duplicate]

I have been thinking lately, why is it that Newton's second law of motion takes the form $F = ma$? It seems to me the idea of a force is a somewhat made up concept, at least the value we assign to it ...
Jandré Snyman's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
604 views

How did Newton find the relationship between force, mass and acceleration? [duplicate]

I have been told always that $F$ is directly proportional to acceleration. My question is that for finding such a relationship there should be source that produces desired force and in which the ...
user28804's user avatar
  • 107
0 votes
1 answer
203 views

How to discover the $F = m\cdot a$ equation from scratch? [duplicate]

Is there a paper or a book that conceptually 'discover' the Newton's famous formula? I've been thinking about this equation, and I really don't know it for sure. Did Newton empirically noticed that ...
user52742's user avatar
14 votes
10 answers
5k views

How do we know that $F = ma$, not $F = k \cdot ma$?

It seems intuitive that $a\; \propto \frac{F}{m}$, as the greater the force that is applied on an object, the greater its acceleration will be. Inversely, the greater the mass of the object, the ...
1110101001's user avatar
  • 1,585
5 votes
2 answers
14k views

How do formulas get figured out?

Many of the formulas I learn in school are derived from more basic formulas — as long you your math is right and assuming the more basic formulas you used are correct, you are bound to get to a ...
Paul Manta's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why does one multiply physical quantities in physics equations? [closed]

What I mean by this is for example if you take the equation $$F=ma,$$ why is it that you multiply mass by acceleration? How do we know this concept that we define as the force is best described by $m$ ...
lod46's user avatar
  • 69
5 votes
3 answers
2k views

How Did Newton's Second Law Get Its Definition?

If I've read Newton's Laws of Motion correctly in the Principia, it seems that Newton attributed the "change in motion" (momentum) to the "impressed force". Mathematically this would be read as $\...
chevestong's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
4k views

How did Newton establish his famous third law of motion?

For every action,there is equal and opposite reaction . This is the famous Newton's third law of motion. But how did he come to this conclusion? We can prove 2nd law using calculus. But how did Newton ...
user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

How did Isaac Newton derive the laws of gravity?

I would like to know how do people come to derive physical laws out of experiments alone, for example how did Newton came up with the laws of gravity? Did he just set those as axioms or did he ...
Dimtsol's user avatar
  • 159
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

How did Newton exactly prove his famous three laws of motion? [duplicate]

I have a science project on the discovery of Isaac Newton. I want to highlight in most detail the famous Three Laws of Motion that Newton claims to have devised. However, looking everywhere on the web ...
Bob Lynch's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

What are the tools used by Newton to measure motion?

I was wondering how did Sir Newton measured motion of objects (non celestial ones). What was his toolskit at the time?
Vrlem's user avatar
  • 21
0 votes
3 answers
755 views

On force being directly proportional to the rate of change of momentum [duplicate]

Newton's second law says that $F_{Net}=\frac{dp}{dt}$. I do realise that when the net force on a body is zero it keeps its current velocity, so one can infer that the force is somehow related to ...
GDGDJKJ's user avatar
  • 558
1 vote
1 answer
650 views

History of Newtons law of gravitation

I have some questions about the history of Newtons law of universal gravitation. Did Newton discover his three laws of motion before he discovered the universal law of gravitation? I know two ...
Julia's user avatar
  • 1,750
4 votes
0 answers
97 views

Where do Newton's laws come from? [duplicate]

I have studied physics for about three years at university but after these years I still don't know how Newton derived his laws. I know that he tried to find the best model to describe the motions ...
jack's user avatar
  • 325
2 votes
0 answers
53 views

Newton and the change of mass with time [duplicate]

I always thought that $force$ is $mass * acceleration$. Well, that's what I learnt at school a while back. Now, I have been enlightened that force is in fact the rate of change of momentum. What ...
Geoff's user avatar
  • 233