Who was the creator of principle of inertia

[Aikon]

Hi all,

It is really a history question.
I read that Galileu developed the concept of inertia, but today I knew it from Newton's 1st law. So my question is: Both of them arrived at the idea independently? Was Newton aware about Galileu's work and used the law because it is the basis for his 2nd law F=ma?

Thank you,

 

[mfb]

Every human, independent of the precise definition of that word in terms of our ancestors, discovers this concept before he/she learns a language.
Galileo and Newton just made them more accessible to a quantitative analysis.

 

[mathman]

Every human, independent of the precise definition of that word in terms of our ancestors, discovers this concept before he/she learns a language.
Galileo and Newton just made them more accessible to a quantitative analysis.

Not quite true. Aristotle thought that things would slow down (he didn't consider the role of friction). Galileo preceded Newton.

 

[mfb]

Aristotle thought that things would slow down (he didn't consider the role of friction).

Conservation of momentum is a different thing. I think you need a concept of inertia to propose a violation of momentum conservation.

 

[Philip Wood]

Galileo's notion of inertia seems to have been that bodies in circular motion keep going at constant speed. Descartes seems to have been the first to state that a body maintains its velocity (i.e. speed and direction) unless acted upon by an external force. It's stated, for example, in his 'Meditations' of 1642 (the year Newton was born).