There is a relevant article in this month's Physics Today:
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The vis viva dispute: A controversy at the dawn of dynamics
The need to augment Newtonian mechanics to encompass systems more
complex than collections of point masses engendered a century-long
dispute about conservation principles.
Larry Woolf
General Atomics
www.ga.com
www.sci-ed-ga.org
-----Original Message-----
From:David Abineri
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 1:58 PM
Subject: [Phys-l] History of MASS
I wonder if someone can comment on the historical development of the
concept of mass. When was such a concept first used and what was the
original motivation for a concept that tell us what we understand mass
to be today. Galileo and Newton surely understood the need for such a
concept but when and why did it first arise?