James Burke TV - Isaac Newton - William Shakespeare - Ernest Hemingway - Thomas Hobbes - James Clerk Maxwell - Xenophanes - Kaufman & Anthony - Brian Cox TV -
An American engineer, a guy called Frank Gilbreith ... He and his psychologist wife set about putting things right ... Time and Motion was their thing ... Had twelve kids and wrote a book about it called Cheaper by the Dozen. James Burke, Connections s1e5: Wheel of Fortune
Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica, Laws of Motion I
The alternation of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. ibid. Laws of Motion II
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. ibid. Laws of Motion III
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV I ii 219-221, Sir John to Lord Chief Justice
Never mistake motion for action. Ernest Hemingway
There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense. Thomas Hobbes
A strict materialist believes that everything depends on the motion of matter. He knows the form of the laws of motion though he does not know all their consequences when applied to systems of unknown complexity.
Now one thing in which the materialist (fortified with dynamical knowledge) believes is that if every motion great & small were accurately reversed, and the world left to itself again, everything would happen backwards the fresh water would collect out of the sea and run up the rivers and finally fly up to the clouds in drops which would extract heat from the air and evaporate and afterwards in condensing would shoot out rays of light to the sun and so on. Of course all living things would regrede from the grave to the cradle and we should have a memory of the future but not of the past.
The reason why we do not expect anything of this kind to take place at any time is our experience of irreversible processes, all of one kind, and this leads to the doctrine of a beginning and end instead of cyclical progression for ever. James Clerk Maxwell
But without effort [God] sets in motion all things by mind and thought. Xenophanes
Poetry in motion. Paul Kaufman & Mike Anthony, song 1960