Newton's 1st Law
The first law of motion
History
Isaac Newton (a 17th century scientist) put forth a variety of laws that explain why objects move (or don't move) as they do. These three laws have become known as Newton's three laws of motion. The focus of Lesson 1 is Newton's first law of motion - sometimes referred to as the law of inertia.
Real Life Situations
The Law of Inertia
An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. There are two parts to this statement - one that predicts the behavior of stationary objects and the other that predicts the behavior of moving objects. The two parts are summarized in the following diagram.