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Basic Structures of Reality$
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Colin McGinn

Print publication date: 2012

Print ISBN-13: 9780199841103

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199841103.001.0001

The Law of Inertia

Chapter:
(p. 110 ) 5 The Law of Inertia
Source:
Basic Structures of Reality
Author(s):

Colin McGinn

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199841103.003.0006

This chapter analyzes the law of inertia. The law of inertia says that if it were not for outside influence everything would be immortal—not just uniform motion in a straight line but every other property of things. It is never internal to any attribute that it should spontaneously cease to be instantiated. All change of properties is imposed from outside those properties. Complete isolation would thus ensure universal perseverance, if only it were possible. The law of inertia, when generalized, asserts a fundamental permanence at the core of things. Eternity is written into every fact.

Keywords:   law of inertia, physics, Newton, motion

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