science

Revisiting the archives, Hoek realized this common paraphrasing featured a misinterpretation that flew under the radar until 1999, when two scholars picked up on the translation of one Latin word that had been overlooked: quatenus, which means "insofar", not unless.

To Hoek, this makes all the difference. Rather than describing how an object maintains its momentum if no forces are impressed on it, Hoek says the new reading shows Newton meant that every change in a body's momentum – every jolt, dip, swerve, and spurt – is due to external forces.

Right, no doubt to a philosopher this makes all the difference, but we haven't been reading it wrong. Words are transient and the result is exactly the same as Newton's first law, but with more words. Sounds like an academic in need of a grant sensationalizing old stuff