Euler's laws of motion each governed by Newton’s laws of motion, then Euler’s equations can be derived from Newton’s laws. Euler’s equations can, however, be taken as axioms describing the laws of motion for extended bodies, independently of any particle distribution. The total body force applied to a continuous body with mass , mass density , and volume , is the volume integral integrated over the volume of the body: where is the force acting on the body per unit mass (dimensions of acceleration, misleadingly called the "body force"), and is an infinitesimal mass element of the body. Body forces and contact forces acting
Newton's laws of motion way one can consider the laws to be a definition of these quantities. Newtonian mechanics has been superseded by special relativity, but it is still useful as an approximation when the speeds involved are much slower than the speed of light. The first law states that if the net force (the vector sum of all forces acting on an object) is zero, then the velocity of the object is constant. Velocity is a vector quantity which expresses both the object's speed and the direction of its motion; therefore, the statement that the object's velocity is constant is a statement that