Newton’s Law of Motion is broken down into three parts:
The Law of Inertia: An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force
e.g. If you hit a curb when riding a skateboard you will fly off because of the abrupt force that
stopped you from moving forward.
Equilibrium: The acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables and pertains to objects that exist where not all forces are balanced. The two important variables are a) the net force and b) the mass of the object being acted upon.
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”: Essentially this means that a force is a push or pull upon an object that results from its interaction with another object.
e.g. a bird pushes through (back) the air with its wings while the air pushes the bird’s body mass
forward.
Newton's Law of Motion is being brought up on page 5 of Arcadia while Thomasina is working with Septimus. Thomasina is beginning to question whether God is a Newtonian, which is curious because she raises the age-old question of free will in association with both religion and science. Specifically in this scene she and Septimus are going back and forth about the idea of forces acting upon the human holding back free will, but does that make a difference in how we conduct ourselves? Let's look at what we've read so far though, specifically in Act 1, Scene 1 where it seems that Septimus has certainly acted upon his own free will with Mrs Chater. I feel that base knowledge of a concept is not enough for Thomasina. To just know the definition of Newton's Law will not be enough for her. Paying attention to the theme of free will and outside forces will be important to the play--they will make a difference as we continue to read.
"For every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction."
and opposite reaction."
The Law of Motion (above)
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