Would Inertia be discovered quicker on an ice planet?

“@drg1985: Better potential question - if we lived on an ice planet, would Newton's law of Inertia be discovered quicker? :)” YES! Thanks
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 4, 2014

Recently I came across the above tweet from +Richard Dawkins, and have pondered its accuracy.  Just so that we are all up to speed newtons Law of inertia is the one that says that if an object is moving, then it will keep moving in the same velocity (speed and direction) unless something happens to stop it.

Before anyone writes anything about +Richard Dawkins there should perhaps be a little caveat - for those anti-vaxers, anti creationists and other religious weirdos out there - yes its the same +Richard Dawkins  that says that all religion is bunkum, and therefore you will want to use a flippant remark like the above to add a little ad hominem to your arguments against him.  Thats OK - you're really not going to live any longer, improve your quality of life, or change your mind for anything here.  I'm just disputing this remark, it does not mean that he is wrong about everything. The comment on Twitter is a little flippant, and everyone deserves a chance for flippancy, unless they are a prominent scientist. In which case - aw sod it do what you will.

Back on track.  The concept of speed of discovery has many things to do with the environment that we are in.  However the most obvious points do not necessarily get discovered first.  Take the zeroth law of thermodynamics - it is much more obvious than the first law, yet it was 'discovered' two centuries after the first three were formalised.

Part of the problem with the statement is the word 'discovered'  When scientists say this we mean that it is formalised from an observation, and tested as a hypothesis.  Oxygen was being used by microorganisms long before the element was identified, weighted, and held responsible in the 17th century.

So back to the original tweet.  Would people living on an ice planet discover inertia earlier than people not in an ice planet.   To answer this we don't even need to look at other planets - we need to look at our own world - and look at what makes discoveries.  inertia was formalised by newton - a bloke in the 16th century living in England.  England is neither a country which is permanently in ice, nor in permanent absence of ice.  People had lived in countries such as the the north of Europe for many years, and had used inertia just as effectively as those who lived in equatorial regions.

Going with the use of inertia as a primitive form of discovery then big things have always been harder to move than small things, and hitting things harder has always been preferable to hitting them lightly.  The usage of inertia as a concept developed faster through warfare, and hunting than through the presence of ice.  For warfare perhaps we need to thank the religious lobby a little.

If the time of discovery is really about the time of mathematical formalisation - which is the process that Newton performed. Then to speed up this you need to have spare people, not engaged in primary industries.  Farming on ice, and living on ice is difficult and requires a lot of manpower.  Therefore there is less room for people to do other things which support secondary and tertiary industries.  The formalisation of discoveries is very much a tertiary industrial activity, which requires an easier lifestyle than would be available on an ice planet.

A better flippant tweet may have been that the laws of thermodynamics may have been studied more enthusiastically on an ice planet.