When Isaac Newton inscribed his famous laws of motion on parchment in 1687, he probably just expected us to still be discussing them three centuries later.
Newton wrote down in Latin three universal principles that describe how the motion of objects is governed by the universe, and these principles have been translated, transcribed, discussed and debated for a long time.
But according to a philosopher of language and mathematics, we may have been misinterpreting the exact wording of Newton’s first law.
Virginia Tech philosopher Daniel Hooker wanted to “set the record straight” after discovering what he called a “clumsy translation error” in the 1729 English translation of Newton’s original Latin work, “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.”
Based on this translation, countless scholars and teachers have since interpreted Newton’s first law of inertia to mean that an object will continue to move in a straight line or remain at rest unless an external force intervenes.
This description makes sense when you realize that external forces are constantly at work, something Newton certainly had in mind in his wording.
Hooker returned to the archives and realized that this common interpretation contained an overlooked mistranslation. It was not until 1999 that two scholars noticed the translation error of this overlooked Latin word: quatenus, meaning “in To some extent” rather than “unless”.
For Hooker, this was very important. Rather than describing how an object maintains its momentum without the application of an external force, Hooke said, Newton’s new reading showed that every change in an object’s momentum—every bump, slide, turn, and burst—is caused by Caused by external forces.
“By putting that forgotten word [quatenus] back in its place, [these scholars] restored the original glory of one of the fundamental principles of physics,” Hooker wrote in a blog post about his paper. ”
However, this crucial correction never caught on. Even now, it may struggle to gain acceptance over centuries of repetition.
“Some people think my interpretation is too wild and unusual to be taken seriously,” Hook commented. “Others think it’s so obviously true that it’s hardly worth arguing about.”
The average person might think this sounds like a linguistics question. Hooke acknowledged that this reinterpretation did not change physics. But a closer examination of Newton’s own writings can clarify the pioneering mathematician’s thinking at the time.
“There has been a lot of debate as to what the law of inertia is used for,” explained Hooke, who as a student was confused by Newton’s meaning.
If we accept the current translation that objects move in straight lines without external forces acting on them until a force forces them to change direction, then a question arises: why would Newton write a law about objects without external forces when in our There is no such object in the universe; what about when gravity and friction are always present?
“The whole point of the first law is to infer the existence of a force,” philosopher George Smith of Tufts University told Scientific American reporter Stephanie Pappas.
In fact, Newton gave three specific examples to illustrate his first law: The most insightful of these, according to Hooke, was a top, since we know that a top is slowed down by air friction in an ever-increasing spiral.
By giving this example, Hooke said, Newton made it clear that his understanding of the first law applied to accelerating objects that were acted upon by external forces—that is, that it applied to objects in the real world.
This revised interpretation, Hooke said, re-emphasized one of Newton’s most basic and, at the time, thoroughly revolutionary ideas. That is, planets, stars, and other celestial bodies are governed by the same physical laws as objects on Earth.
“Every change in velocity and tilt in direction,” Hooke mused—from atomic clumps to spiral galaxies—“is governed by Newton’s first law.”
This allows us to once again feel connected to the farthest reaches of the universe.