I'm wondering about the history of the concept of friction. As I
understand it, before Newton people assumed that objects in motion
tended to stop if a force wasn't applied, but when Newton introduced
the First Law, we suddenly had to consider friction as a force rather
than a fundamental law. Was there some particular person (Newton
himself, perhaps) who first introduced the notion of the "frictional
force"? Or was the idea around before Newton, but not well-codified?
Anybody happen to know? Answers before my class tomorrow morning
would be doubly welcome. ;)