An object in uniform motion...

...will remain in uniform motion, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

It was Sir Isaac Newton who defined this important law and is now celebrated in Physics books everywhere. But really Ike... you became a hero for writing down what to everyone else was a no-brainer.

For example, anyone who has been hit by a car could explain the same phenomenon.

There I was, minding my own business on my way home from an afternoon of census work, when physics did its thing. The white man was glowing on the corner of 8th North and Freedom, so I mounted my bike and started in motion. The force of my legs on the pedals accelerated my mass in a Northerly direction, and I began to roll straight across the street.

Then all of a sudden, before I knew what was happenening, my forward motion was rudlely interrupted and I started moving East. "The laws of Physics are being broken!" was of course my instant thought. "I applied no force that would in any way make me and my bicycle travel sideways. My wheels don't even turn that way!"

Only after this quick and logical thought process did I realize that I was no longer on a bike at all. My dual suspension Next brand mountain bike from Wal Mart was now pinned beneath the nose of a dirty green sedan. I was sitting on the hood.

"What?" and "How the heck did this just happen?" were the questions that quickly replaced my concerns about physics.

I'm still not sure how the dude didn't see me in the crosswalk, but he at least appologised and gave me all his info and everything. Fortunately the only thing broken was my bike.

The moral of the story: Before you start panicing that a fundamental law of physics is being broken, always remember that traffic laws are much more easliy broken than Newton's laws. If you look down, you may just be sitting on the hood of a 2000 Plymoth Neon.