- #1
Hyacinth42
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What is the point of Newton's First Law? The first law says that "The state of motion of an object will not change unless acted upon by an outside force". In layman's terms, this means that the object's velocity won't change unless there is a net force (at least that is how our physics teacher explained it to us). In other words, if there is a net force on an object, there will be acceleration... Now, Newton's Second Law state "The net force on an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration. Newton's Second Law does not say the same thing as Newton's First Law. The first law states the concept, and the second law states the equation that applies to the concept. If the equation is correct, then obviously the concept exists. So, what is the point of Newton's First Law? Why can't we simply use the second and third law?