Anyone. Who has taught introductory physics should know that roughly a third of the students initially believe that any object at rest will.remain at rest whereas any moving body not propelled by applied forces will promptly come to rest likewise about half of those uninitiated students believe that any object moving at a constant speed must be continually pushed if it isto maintain its motion that's essentially aristotle's law of motion and it is so obviously borne out by experince that it was accepted by scholars for2000 year right through the copernican revolution but of course it's fundamentally wrong this paper tells the story of how the correct understanding the law of inertia evolved and how newton came to make it his first law