Sometimes when people try to motivate others to exercise they cite Newton’s First Law of Motion by saying “Come on let’s go jogging! A body in motion stays in motion!” They’re trying to say that once you start jogging it’s easy to keep going. The problem I have with people saying this is they clearly have no idea what they’re talking about. The law actually says “An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force.” The key here are the words “external force.” Using the example of jogging, outside forces include air, wind friction, and gravity. Those are very serious forces slowing you down and keeping an object in motion from continuing in motion. It’s those forces that require you to exert energy to fight against Newton’s First Law. People exercise in spite of gravity and Newton so to use his laws to motivate them to exercise is manipulating the words. You’re trying to trick someone who doesn’t know how physics works and that’s not cool. Science is meant to reveal truths and help understand the universe. Science is not meant to inspire people to get a better beach body.
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| "Yeah... That's not what I was talking about at all." - Sir Isaac Newton |
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