First Law Of Motion Quotes (3 quotes)
Against filling the Heavens with fluid Mediums, unless they be exceeding rare, a great Objection arises from the regular and very lasting Motions of the Planets and Comets in all manner of Courses through the Heavens.
From Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (1718), 339.
Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it doesn’t. … The suggestion that the body really wanted to go straight but some mysterious agent made it go crooked is picturesque but unscientific.
Paraphasing Newton’s First Law of Motion. In a Gifford Lecture delivered at the University of Edinburgh (1927), 'Gravitation: The Law', The Nature of the Physical World (1928), 124.
Inequality is the cause of all local movements. There is no rest without equality.
From Codex Atlanticus, folio 288 back a. In Edward McCurdy, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1939, 1958), Vol. 1, 89. [Compare with Newton’s Laws of Motion. Da Vinci died in 1519; Newton was born over 120 years later. Webmaster, despite much time looking, has not yet found the corresponding quote in the John Paul Richter translation. Can you help? —Webmaster]
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
