Upon the impressive foundations that Galileo had laid, Newton was able to erect a cathedral of superb grandeur. Newton gave three laws governing the behaviour of material objects. The first and second laws were essentially those given by Galileo: if no force acts on a body, it continues to move uniformly in a straight line; if a force does act on it, then its mass times its acceleration (i.e. the rate of change of its momentum) is equal to that force.
