Mountain Man's UseNet Archive Isaac Newton's first post to UseNet in over 300 years! - Carl Hansen
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Summer of 1995

Date: 25 Dec 1995 03:37:09 -0800
From: Carl Hansen
Organization: Best Internet Communications
Newsgroups: sci.physics, sci.classics, alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Subject: Isaac Newton's first post to USENET in over 300 years!

AXIOMATA
SIVE
LEGES MOTUS

Lex. I.

Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.

Projectilia perseverant in motibus suis nisi quatenus a resistentia aeris retardantur & vi gravitatis impelluntur deorsum. Trochus, cujus partes cohaerendo perpetuo retrahunt sese a motibus rectilineis, non cessat rotari nisi quatenus ab aere retardatur. Majora autem Planetarum & Cometarum corpora motus suos & progressivos & circulars in spatiis minus resistentibus factos conservant diutius.

Lex. II.

Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressae, & fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.

Si vis aliqua motum quemvis generet, dupla duplum, tripla triplum generabit, sive simul & semel, sive gradatim & successive impressa fuerit. Et hic motus quoniam in eandem semper plagam cum vi generatrice determinatur, si corpus antea movebatur, motui ejus vel conspiranti additur, vel contrario subducitur, vel obliquo oblique adjicitur, & cum eo secundum utriusq; determinationem componitur.

Lex. III.

Actioni contrariam semper & aequalem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse aequales & in partes contrarias dirigi.

Quicquid premit vel trahit alterum, tantundem ab eo premitur vel trahitur. Siquis lapidem digito premit, premitur & hujus digitus a lapide. Si equus lapidem funi allegatum trahit, retrahetur etiam & equus aequaliter in lapidem: nam funis utrinq; distentus eodem relaxandi se conatu urgebit Equum versus lapidem, ac lapidem versus equum, tantumq; impediet progressum unius quantum promovet progressum alterius. Si corpus aliquod in corpus aliut impingens, motum ejus vi sua quomodocunq: mutaverit, idem quoque vicissim in motu proprio eandem mutationem in partem contrariam vi alterius ( ob aequalitatem pressionis mutuae ) subibit. His actionibus aequales fiunt mutationes non velocitatum sed motuum, ( scilicet in corporibus non aliunde impeditis: ) Mutationes enim velocitatum, in contrarias itidem partes factae, quia motus aequaliter mutantur, sunt corporibus reciproce proportionales.

Isaac Newton (1642-infinitas),
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1686.

Date: 26 Dec 1995 10:58:21 -0800
From: hansen@shellx.best.com (Carl Hansen)
Organization: Best Internet Communications
Newsgroups: sci.physics, sci.classics, alt.sci.physics.new-theories
References: 1
Subject: Re: Isaac Newton's first post to USENET in over 300 years!

In honor of Isaac Newton on his birthday, December 25, here is re-presented the first translation of his immortal words into the native language of his own country, England, a nation occupying most of a large island off the west coast of Europe.

Translator: Andrew Motte, 1729, (copyright expired).

AXIOMS, OR LAWS OF MOTION

LAW I

Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.

Projectiles persevere in their motions, so far as they are not retarded by the resistance of the air, or impelled downwards by the force of gravity. A top, whose parts by their cohesion are perpetually drawn aside from rectilinear motions, does not cease its rotation, otherwise than as it is retarded by the air. The greater bodies of the planets and comets, meeting with less resistance in more free spaces, preserve their motions both progressive and circular for a much longer time.

LAW II

The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

If any force generates a motion, a double force will generate double the motion, a triple force triple the motion, whether that force be impressed altogether and at once, or gradually and successively. And this motion (being always directed the same way with the generating force), if the body moved before, is added to or subducted from the former motion, according as they directly conspire with or are directly contrary to each other; or obliquely joined, when they are oblique, so as to produce a new motion compounded from the determination of both.

LAW III

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that other. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone. If a horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the horse (if I may so say) will be equally drawn back towards the stone: for the distended rope, by the same endeavour to relax or unbend itself, will draw the horse as much towards the stone, as it does the stone towards the horse, and will obstruct the progress of the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a body impinge upon another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, towards the contrary part. The changes made by these actions are equal, not in the velocities but in the motions of bodies; that is to say, if the bodies are not hindered by any other impediments. For, because the motions are equally changed, the changes of the velocities made towards contrary parts are reciprocally proportional to the bodies. This law takes place also in attractions, as will be proved in the next scholium.

Copied from Peter G. Bergman,The Riddle of Gravitation , 1968.

What Motte translates as "motion," today we call "momentum."

Those with words to match these, let them speak.

Mountain Man's UseNet Archive Isaac Newton's first post to UseNet in over 300 years! - Carl Hansen
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Summer of 1995