the.com/prime mover
The uncaused cause — something that moves everything else without needing a push itself.
means The original source of motion, action, or change in a chain of events — the thing that starts it all without being started by anything else.
from Rooted in Aristotle's philosophy as the 'unmoved mover' (Greek roots filtered through Latin 'primus movens'), the concept behind what sets the universe in motion without itself needing a cause. The English phrase 'prime mover' took that idea and ran with it, picking up everyday use for the key person, force, or part that gets a machine, project, or plan going — the one everything else depends on but who answers to nothing upstream.
- origin
- Aristotle's answer to why anything moves at all
- theology link
- Aquinas rebranded it as proof of God
- modern use
- now just means whoever actually gets things started
- irony
- the mover itself stays perfectly, eternally still