Essay On Newton's First Law Of Motion

Newton’s First Law of Motion Isaac Newton’s first law of motion states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest, unless an outside force is acting upon the object. This is a simple, yet complex concept that we see and feel every day. Long before this law of motion was observed and put into words it was acting upon us as human beings, as well as every other object, not only here on earth but everywhere in the universe. How Newton’s first law of motion affects things in space is just as important as how it affects us here on earth. Imagine shooting a basketball into hoop here on earth. The ball will travel in an arc, traveling upward until a certain point, at which the ball starts descending into the hoop. According to Newton’s first law the ball should continue traveling at an upward angle
Even though the moon is in space the earth’s gravity is still acting upon it, so a person could say that the moon is falling towards the earth. The reason that the moon doesn’t literally fall to the earth is because the moon is traveling at a constant rate of speed, which has the tendency to travel in a straight line. There is a correlation between the amount of force that the earth’s gravity has on the moon, due to its distance, and the moon’s tendency to travel in a straight line. The moon is constantly changing direction as it orbits the earth in an elliptical pattern, even so, it constantly has the tendency to travel in a straight line. The earth’s gravity pulls the moon towards it, causing it to not travel in a constant direction. Therefore, as the moon is trying to travel a single direction, it is constantly being pulled towards the earth. Since the earth is a sphere the moon does not get any closer or further away as it wants to travel in a straight line while being pulled towards the earth. The illustrations below show this