Human history is often framed as a series of episodes, representing sudden bursts of knowledge. The Agricultural Revolution, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution are a few examples where it is generally thought that innovation moved quicker than at other points in history, leading to a ...

According to Newton’s first law, objects tend to remain at rest unless an external force or energy makes them change their state.

Applied to life, this would mean everything requires energy and effort to get started, and be propelled towards action.

Scientists know four forces - things that attract or repel one object from another. The strong force and the weak force operate only inside the centres of atoms. The electromagnetic force rules objects with excess charge, and gravity