Concept
Momentum
Overview
conserved physical quantity related to the motion of a body
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Momentum is discussed.
Conservation of mass, conservation of momentum, and conservation of energy were the great principles of classical mechanics. Let us next consider conservation of momentum. The momentum of a body in a given direction is its velocity in that direction multiplied by its mass. Thus a heavy body moving slowly may have the same momentum as a light body moving fast. When a number of bodies interact in any way, for instance…
Bertrand Russell, The A B C of Relativity
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it
But it was felt to contain a truth; even a superficial observation of the phenomena left no doubt that in the propagation of motion from one body to another, there was something of which the one body gained precisely what the other lost; and the word momentum had been invented to express this unknown something. The settlement, therefore, of the definition of momentum, involved the determination of the question, What…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
names the idea; states what it is
61. Moreover, two important truths on this subject have been discovered since M. Descartes' day. The first is that the quantity of absolute force which is in fact conserved is different from the quantity of movement, as I have demonstrated elsewhere. The second discovery is that the same direction is still conserved in all bodies together that are assumed as interacting, in whatever way they come into collision. If…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
states what it is; author linked in the graph
The motives for this development were various; perhaps the most important was the development of physics immediately after Descartes’ time. A law was discovered called the “conservation of momentum”. This states that, if a system of bodies is in any sort of motion, and is free from outside influences, the amount of motion _in any direction_ is constant.
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
names the idea
This cohesive tension cannot cease without an equivalent result. What is its equivalent result? The momentum generated in the prong while being carried back to its position of rest. This momentum too—what becomes of it? It must either continue as momentum, or produce some correlative force of equal amount. It cannot continue as momentum, since change of place is resisted by the cohesion of the parts; and thus it…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Momentum
Related ideas
- Avicenna
- General relativity
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- The Book of Healing
- Isaac Newton
- Speed of sound
- Physics (Aristotle)
- Jean Buridan
- Latin
- Light
- Mass
- Heat
- Maxwell's equations
- Velocity
- Quantum mechanics
- Quantum field theory
- René Descartes
- John Philoponus
- Special relativity
- Stanford University
- Galilean invariance
- Galileo Galilei
- Theory of relativity
- Aristotle
Place in the tradition
Part of Knowledge.