Re: [Phys-l] History of Friction

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

Scott Hill wrote:
> 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. 

That's close, but gets the history wrong by a few decades; see below.

>  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?

The idea was around before Newton, and was quite well codified.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_New_Sciences

"Galileo ... is the father of modern physics -- indeed of modern science"
                                          --- Albert E.