Galileo — read all his notes, commentaries, and books. • Newton adopted Galileo’s definition of inertia — defined for heavenly bodies — to earthly bodies as his first law. • The next thing needed a rule to find how an object changes its speed if something is affecting it —> equating momentum to force became the second law. • Lastly, conservation of momentum, i.e., F = -F, became the third law. 19