Newton's Discovery of Mass, Force & G in SI Units

AI Thread Summary
Newton determined the mass of an object using proportionality rather than established units, as the SI units for mass and force were defined much later. He understood that doubling the force would result in a doubling of momentum change, which laid the groundwork for his laws of motion. Although the modern concept of units was not developed during his time, he effectively used pounds and feet for his calculations. The relationship expressed in F=GMm/d² and the concept of gravitational force were also established after Newton's era. Ultimately, the key takeaway is that understanding physical behavior does not rely on specific units but on the principles of proportionality.
adjacent
Gold Member
Messages
1,552
Reaction score
62
What did Newton use to determine the mass of an object(During those days)
Even the SI unit for mass was established much time later.
The SI Unit for force was also established much later.
The G in F=GMm/d2 was discovered in Much later.

How did Newton knew that a force of 1N would accelerate a mass of 1KG to 1m/s2?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
There are numerous threads here discussing what Newton actually wrote (try searching on "Principia" and maybe you can find these discussions).

As I understand it, Newton expressed the idea in terms of proportionality: twice the force causes twice the change in momentum.

The modern concept of units probably wasn't really developed in Newton's time.
 
the unit was named after Newton! :wink:

(and he used pounds and feet, anyway)​
 
You do not need to know the units to determine the laws of physical behaviour. You need to know how to 'double' the mass and to have a means of measuring force and to know how to 'double' a force.
Both of the responses above have something sensible to say and I would say the key thing is the idea of proportionality.
 
The rope is tied into the person (the load of 200 pounds) and the rope goes up from the person to a fixed pulley and back down to his hands. He hauls the rope to suspend himself in the air. What is the mechanical advantage of the system? The person will indeed only have to lift half of his body weight (roughly 100 pounds) because he now lessened the load by that same amount. This APPEARS to be a 2:1 because he can hold himself with half the force, but my question is: is that mechanical...
Some physics textbook writer told me that Newton's first law applies only on bodies that feel no interactions at all. He said that if a body is on rest or moves in constant velocity, there is no external force acting on it. But I have heard another form of the law that says the net force acting on a body must be zero. This means there is interactions involved after all. So which one is correct?
Let there be a person in a not yet optimally designed sled at h meters in height. Let this sled free fall but user can steer by tilting their body weight in the sled or by optimal sled shape design point it in some horizontal direction where it is wanted to go - in any horizontal direction but once picked fixed. How to calculate horizontal distance d achievable as function of height h. Thus what is f(h) = d. Put another way, imagine a helicopter rises to a height h, but then shuts off all...

Similar threads

Back
Top