Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 6: History and Philosophy of Physics

AGPhil 6.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 16:15–16:45, H 2033

Are there elements of Leibniz’s theory in Newton? On the different shapes of Newton’s 2nd Law — •Dieter Suisky — Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

The representation of Newton’s 2nd Law underwent several modifications between 1684 and 1687. It will be argued that some of them are probably related to Leibniz’s critique of Cartesian mechanics in 1686.
In comparison to the preliminary versions in the manuscripts entitled De Motu (1684a, 1684b), the final version of the 2nd Law published in the Principia (1687) is distinguished by two modifications. De Motu (a): "The change of the state of motion and rest is proportional to the force impressed and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed." De Motu (b): "The change of motion is proportional to the force impressed ..." In 1686, Leibniz published his famous attack upon Cartesian mechanics replacing the quantity of motion with the moving force and in 1687 appeared the name of "moving force" also in the Principia completing the previously denoted impressed force. "The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed ..."
Finally, in the French translation published in 1759, du Châtelet interpreted Newton in the spirit of Leibniz by omitting the word "impressed" and maintaining the word "moving". In the Institutions published in 1740, du Châtelet has already accentuated the Leibniz related interpretation by adding that the "change in the direction and the velocity are always due to an external force because otherwise the change would be without sufficient reason".