Newton’s first law of motion says that an object stays at rest or keeps moving at a constant speed in a straight line unless an outside force changes it. – Wikipedia
This may seem like something that is intuitively obvious but is in fact the point where science started to go seriously wrong.
The law appears to be a simple statement about the motion of an object but is in fact the foundation for a whole world view concerning matter, space, mass, distance, force and motion.
Wikipedia touches upon this:
Newton’s first law expresses the principle of inertia: the natural behaviour of a body is to move in a straight line at constant speed. A body’s motion preserves the status quo, but external forces can perturb this. – Wikipedia
We now have the additional ideas of ‘inertia’, and ‘natural behaviour’ in addition to the strictly geometrical concept of ‘straight line’.
Wikipedia defines ‘force:
In physics, a ‘force’ is something that can cause an object to change its velocity.. – Wikipedia
So Newton’s first Law now becomes:
An object keeps moving at a constant velocity unless influenced by something that will cause it to change its velocity.
This is a circular definition and hence no definition at all.
The Newtonian world view
A deceptively simple and intuitively ‘obvious’ statement now hides a whole host of assumptions and a circular definition.
The underlying model is one where ‘objects’ move uninterrupted through an empty ‘space’, guided by mysterious ‘forces’. Any resistance to movement (inertia) is provided by the object itself and is thought to be independent of the nature of the surrounding space.
Distance is measured with reference to some external and ‘absolute’ coordinate system which is assumed to exist somehow but not in physical form. Straight lines are defined by such a coordinate system and the objects themselves are sufficiently cognisant of such coordinates as to make ‘motion in a straight line’ their ‘natural behaviour’.
No physical processes are described for the phenomena of ‘motion’, ‘motion in a straight line’ or ‘change in velocity’, with ‘motion’ itself simply defined as geometric movement relative to an invisible and non-physical coordinate system.
Under this scheme, invariant motion is theoretically inevitable as there are no features of either empty space or an imaginary coordinate system that can cause an object to change its velocity. Such changes are only possible via the action of ‘forces’ i.e. things that can change the velocity of an object.
Newton’s first law is meaningless outside of this entire enclosing world view where space, distance, speed, force etc. are defined in a very specific manner and in such a way so as to support the actual law itself.
A field solution as an alternative scheme
Instead of conceptualising the world as separate objects moving in a neutral space, we can imagine the entire cosmos as an electromagnetic field system where ‘objects’ are dense field structures and the ‘fabric of space’ is an electro-gravitational field.
This is the sort of scheme dreamt of by Einstein and outlined by Konstantin Meyl in his book: Scalar Waves – A first Tesla physics textbook for engineers.
Movement of an object through space is the result of pure field interaction and is always relative to the local field conditions rather than any abstract coordinate system which exists outside pf physical reality. Likewise, ‘acceleration’ is a very specific form of field behaviour and is relative to the local (gravitational) field.
Inertia is a form of field drag and arises from interaction between the micro field structures of an object and a gravitational field: Gravity as an inertial field
Given these hypotheses, it is now no longer obvious that an object will travel in a straight line or even what it is that defines a straight line. It even seems possible that a moving object may lose some energy to its surroundings, causing a slowing down of the motion and maybe the emission of some radiation.
Possible problems with Newton’s assumptions
We can now clearly see some of Newton’s problematic areas:
- Inertia may not be intrinsic to an object and may not be constant
- We should consider that a small amount of energy may ‘leak’ into the surroundings
- If the idea of ‘distance’ changes throughout the cosmos then so does the idea of motion
- The ‘natural motion’ of an object within a gravitational field is not obviously a straight line
- Describing something simply as ‘natural motion’ is not a theory of physics
- The idea of a ‘force’ is ill-defined; is gravity a ‘force’ or not?
- With no physical reference frame for the universe, even the the idea of ‘position’ is not well-defined
- If no part of the cosmos is without a gravitational (accelerational) field then Newton’s first law is surely untestable?
What is a straight line?
Further to this, we can ask the seemingly innocuous question: “What is a straight line?”
If we think in geometric terms, the answer is obvious. However, we have not established that physical ‘space’ is describable by geometric rules. Recall that Einstein would later declare that space is in fact curved and would define a straight line as a geodesic in curved space, i.e. as a curved line. ‘Curved’ is the new ‘straight’!
The flat space of Newton was clearly inadequate for Einstein but the idea of objects or light moving through some sort of coordinate system was retained and the shadow of Newton never really shaken off.
An AI summary
Because gravity and friction are omnipresent on Earth, an object left entirely to itself cannot be directly observed in a perfect inertial state. Instead, scientists prove the law empirically by systematically reducing these external forces and observing that the object’s behaviour approaches the ideal conditions predicted by Isaac Newton.
The AI has worked out that Newton’s law is inapplicable to any realistic situation but still regards the law as empirically provable as it approaches ‘ideal’ i.e. unrealistic conditions. A theory is built up of an imaginary universe and thereafter empirical observations are said to gain validity as they ‘approach’ those expected from the imaginary realm.
Ideal: Existing only in the mind or as a concept, not physical or real.
This pattern seems to pervade the whole of physics: that there is an ideal realm somewhere where all of the laws of physics hold and that actual reality and empirical data are somewhat imperfect renderings of such a realm.
What is the point of a law that applies nowhere and never?
Empirical evidence
We can try searching for empirical evidence of Newton’s Law to see if scientists have performed due diligence in proving Newton’s claims. We would at least like to see to what degree empirical observations approach the ideal Newtonian behaviour.
Top examples from an AI search:
Air Tracks and Hovercrafts:
On a standard surface, a sliding puck quickly comes to a stop due to friction. However, on an air track—where the puck floats on a thin cushion of air—frictional resistance is drastically lowered. When pushed, the puck travels across the track at a remarkably constant velocity with almost zero deceleration until it strikes the boundary.
This is over a remarkably small timeframe and does not rule out a slow leakage of energy. We want to see if the puck continues to slide indefinitely at a uniform speed but the presence of friction effectively rules out this result.
The Galileo Inclined Plane Experiment
Preceding Newton, Galileo Galilei conducted empirical tests by rolling a ball down one inclined plane and up another. He noted that as he smoothed the surfaces (reducing friction), the ball always rolled up to nearly the exact height from which it was released, regardless of the second plane’s angle. He logically concluded that if the second plane were perfectly horizontal and frictionless, the ball would continue moving indefinitely in a straight line at a constant speed to reach that height.
The experiment did not involve motion in a straight line and the conclusion is a massive overreach. The ball was continually accelerating.
The test was to see whether the ball would keep rolling but the presence of friction ensured that it didn’t. Failure was built into the experiment.
Interstellar Space Probes
The ultimate empirical proof for Newton’s first law comes from deep space, where the environment serves as a natural laboratory nearly devoid of friction, atmospheric drag, and significant gravitational interference.
Excellent!
Let us see what happened:
Both Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 experienced an unexpected deceleration—known as the Pioneer Anomaly—that subtly altered their predicted speeds as they travelled through the outer solar system.
Ouch!
Summary of the empirical evidence
The claim that these experiments prove Newton’s first law is false.
Summary
Newton’s law, whilst appearing to be intuitively obvious, is only meaningful within an enclosing framework of assumptions which actually makes the law a useless tautology.
This framework describes an ideal physics which has little relationship to reality and the central tenets are unprovable and even untestable, relying as they do, on a complete absence of gravity to have any chance of giving a good result.
The experimental results are either invalidated by the confounding factor of frictional losses in laboratory experiments or, in the case of the Pioneer anomalies, some other unknown factors.