Mass, Speed, Direction: John Buridan's 14th century concept of momentum

Abstract

In the 14th century the French thinker John Buridan developed a theory of motion that bears a strong resemblance to Newtonian momentum. Buridan's ideas include a quantity of motion which is determined by an object's mass, speed, and direction; in the absence of resistive effects, this quantity remains with the object. Buridan's work is an interesting story in the history of physics. Buridan's insights have value for introducing concepts of inertia and momentum to physics students.

This article has appeared in The Physics Teacher 51, 411 and may be found at http://link.aip.org/link/?PTE/51/411. Copyright (2013) AAPT. Article may be downloaded for personal use only. Other use requires prior permission of the author and AAPT. This e-print has been posted in accordance with the AAPT guidelines for web posting, found at http://ajp.aapt.org/authors/web_posting_guides