What are Newton's laws of motion and gravity?

A: Newton's Three Laws of Motion and his Law of Gravity are probably the most famous of all physics. They govern the motion of objects that we see in our everyday lives. Newton's First Law of Motion says that an object will remain in its state of motion unless acted upon by force. read more

Newton's major goal was to explain planetary motion. As mentioned earlier, Johannes Kepler had devised three laws of planetary motion without the use of Newton's law of gravity. They are, it turns out, fully consistent and, in fact, one can prove all of Kepler's Laws by applying Newton's theory of universal gravitation. read more

6.4 The Universal Law of Gravity (Discovering the Universe, 5th ed., §2-5) In order to complete his study of the motion of the planets, Newton had to combine his general Laws of Motion with a specific description of the force of gravity. read more

Newton's law of universal gravitation can be written as a vector equation to account for the direction of the gravitational force as well as its magnitude. In this formula, quantities in bold represent vectors. read more