Avicenna's theory of impetus (mayl)
Teoría del ímpetu (mayl) de Avicena
- Date
- c. 1027 · confidence medium
- Place
- Isfahan, Iran
- Credited to
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
- People
- 👤 Avicena980–1037
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
He proposed that the thrower imparts to the projectile an inclination (mayl) that is retained and only dissipates through resistance from the medium, so that in a vacuum motion would continue indefinitely. It breaks with the Aristotelian physics of the continuous mover.
John Philoponus (6th century) had already proposed an impressed force; how much of Buridan's theory derives from Avicenna via Latin translations is debated.
What it led to
- Buridan's theory of impetus
- critique of Aristotelian dynamics
- principle of inertia