Vis viva

From Freepedia

See main article Conservation of energy: Historical development.

Vis Viva (from the Latin for living force) is an obsolete scientific theory that served as an elementary and limited early formulation of the principle of conservation of energy.

Proposed by Gottfried Leibniz over the period 1676-1689, the theory was hugely controversial as it seemed to oppose the theory of conservation of momentum advocated by Sir Isaac Newton and René Descartes. However, the two theories are now understood to be complementary.

The theory was eventually absorbed into the modern theory of energy though it still survives in the limited context of celestial mechanics through the vis viva equation.