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Re: Newton's first law



To more directly answer Carl's question, I present N1 as Isaac's first
step in deciding how to define a useful concept of FORCE.

IE, he began by asking the question "What shall we mean by ZERO FORCE? . .
. What behavior of a body shall we take as the telling measure that it
experiences no (net) outside influence on its motion?" His answer was N1.
This quite naturally provokes N2, . . .

I elaborated somewhat on this and the way I teach the body of Newton's 3
laws in a discussion on Phys-L in February, 1998 (available in the
archives).

Hope this helps.

Bob

Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor


----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl E. Mungan" <mungan@USNA.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 10:48 AM
Subject: Newton's first law


I'm interested in how folks introduce Newton's first law (N1) to
their classes.
. . -
Dr. Carl E. Mungan, Asst. Prof. of Physics 410-293-6680 (O) -3729 (F)
U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD 21402-5026 mailto:mungan@usna.edu
http://physics.usna.edu/physics/faculty/mungan/