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Philosophy Of Science

Newton’s Laws in our life

Newton’s Laws in our life

Who does not know about Sir Isaac Newton, who was born on the 25th of December 1642 (Old Style)/4th January 1643 (New Style) and died on 20th March/31st March 1727. During Newton’s lifetime, two calendars were in use in Europe: the Julian (“Old Style”) calendar in Protestant and Orthodox regions, including Britain; and the Gregorian (“New Style”) calendar in Roman Catholic Europe. At Newton’s birth, Gregorian dates were ten days ahead of Julian dates: thus his birth is recorded as taking place on 25 December 1642 Old Style, but can be converted to a New Style (modern) date of 4 January 1643. By the time of his death, the difference between the calendars had increased to eleven days: moreover, he died in the period after the start of the New Style year on 1 January, but before that of the Old Style new year on 25 March. His death occurred on 20 March 1726 according to the Old Style calendar, but the year is usually adjusted to 1727. A full conversion to New Style gives the date 31 March 1727. He was an English Physicist and Mathematician who became prominent in the Scientific Revolution. He has many discoveries in his credit but the Newton’s Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravitation are always remembered by everyone. It is for these laws he is most famous for. These laws have great influence in everybody’s life from birth to death. So, Sir Isaac Newton still lives with us.

The three Newton’s Laws of Motion are as follows and holds good in whatever we are, we do and we see and experience in our daily life. You might have studied about these laws in school/college days.

The first law states that “Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it”.

Tweaking it a little, we can say “Everybody continues to be in a state of rest, inertia or monotonous life until and unless an external force acts upon them to change their state, activities or lifestyle”. This external force could be anything – like a person (father, mother, wife, husband, friend or a third person), a thing, an incident or a catastrophe. This explains why children (and even adults) do not want to get up from bed in the morning, many of them are lazy to go to school/office or do not even want to change the lifestyle. This external force is sometimes a motivation to think different and act different. Look at the changes that took place in the life of human beings and nature with its result, just because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of us have never imagined such a change in our life or did not even want to change our style of living for whatever reason. The strict rules and regulations, the lockdown and the travel ban – all have taught us a big lesson, worth remembering and following during our life-time. But unfortunately, we have a very big boon given to us “the power to forget” which definitely will reverse all these effects once life becomes normal again as we adjust to get along with this Covid-19.

The second law states that “Force (F) is equal to the change in momentum (mV where m = mass of the body and V is the Velocity) per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration (F = m x a)”.

So, thinking on these lines, for a person (of constant mass), changes take place slowly or at a fast speed (velocity) depending upon the Force or Pressure acting on him/her to bring a change. If the pressure to bring some changes is more, then we act very fast and make the changes else we will think let’s do it tomorrow or some other day.

The third law is more evident in everything we do and states that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (re-action)”.

For whatever we do, whether good or bad, there surely is a reaction equal in force/power acting upon us. If we do good, we get good in return from other sources or from the person to whom we do good things. For our bad actions, we can only expect bad in return and that too will come on the same degree. We often ask “we have only done good in our life so far, but why do we suffer more and more even after doing good?”. This is the result of our Karma in our previous lives. So, for anyone it is a must to perform good deeds in their life if he/she want to get good things in return whether it be in the present life or in future lives (if any). Always remember one thing, the good or bad things we do in our lives are carried over to our younger generations. The bad that you do will reflect in the life of your children, and they may be the ones who will suffer for your wrong deeds.

Newton’s law of Universal Gravitation states that “Every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centres”.

This explains why something falls down to the earth’s surface (or down) when it is allowed to fall down from a height. According to the law, there is a constant called “Gravitational Constant” which acts upon the force pulling the object towards the surface of earth. If there isn’t any external force intervening in between, a body will surely fall down to the earth’s surface – unless it is stopped by by the external force. In our life also, we may be flying high with all luxuries and fame. Only a second is enough for us to fall down, should the force that keeps us flying high ceases to act upon us. This is the divine force of God which keeps us flying high. Any body dropped from a height is pulled by the earth’s gravitational force to ground, with a speed depending upon its mass and its distance (height) from the centre of the earth. Similarly, every person is pulled down with a force proportional to the strength of his/her wrong deeds when the divine power that holds us high and safe ceases to protect us.

There is a limit for everything. It is good if we understand our limits and adjust our lives accordingly.

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Newtons Laws

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Born and brought up in Kerala, I did my schooling in Kerala and graduated (B.Sc Physics) from the Calicut University. I have worked with a Swedish Company from 1994 to 2015, as a Senior Project Manager in their Group IT Division in Dubai. This blog is the result of my strong desire to communicate with others, sharing what I know and what I could gather from various sources.

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