Before Galileo, many people thought that scientific laws could be based on thought rather than scientific observations. Galileo did an experiment to determine if the weight of an object could affect the speed at which it fell from a fixed height. He rolled two balls with different weights down a slope. He found that both balls increased their speed at the same rate. This proved that the same amount of force acts on objects with different weights and disproved Aristotle's idea about motion. Newton based his laws of motion on Galileo's measurements. This also showed that force changes the speed of an object rather than causing it to move from a stationary position.
Newton's First Law of Motion: An object in motion will keep moving in a straight line at a constant speed until an outside force acts upon it.
Newton's Second Law of Motion: The body will accelerate (change speed) at a rate equal to the force.
Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation: Every object attracts every other object with a force equal to the mass of each object.
Newton's Law of Gravity: Objects closer to each other will have more force than objects that are farther apart. This laws explains the gravitational attraction of stars and predicts the orbitals of celestial bodies.
I think that newtons laws about motion and gravity are very important and useful for people who want to know how these types of things work.
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