...
| Info |
|---|
If the First Law seems unnecessary to you, it is worth remembering that the "action at a distance" of gravity (a central concept in one of the central ideas of Newton's Principia) was by no means a commonly held belief in Newton's day. The First Law might be viewed as a statement that orbits must be explained by a force exerted by the central body, even if no "mediator" of such a force is observed. |