Force
Sir Isaac Newton described the motion of all objects using the concepts of inertia and force, and in doing so he found they obey certain conservation laws. In 1687, Newton published his thesis "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica". In this work Newton set out three laws of motion that to this day are the way forces are described in physics.
History of centrifugal and centripetal forces
Later scientists pointed out (as did Newton) that the laws of mechanics were the same for all observers that differed only by uniform translation; that is, all observers that differed in motion only by a constant velocity. Hence, "absolute space" was not preferred, but only one of a set of frames related by Galilean transformations.
Ultimately this notion of the transformation properties of physical laws between frames played a more and more central role. 
It was noted that accelerating frames exhibited "fictitious forces" like the centrifugal force. These forces did not behave under transformation like other forces, providing a means of distinguishing them. This peculiarity of these forces led to the names "inertial forces", "pseudo-forces" or "fictitious forces". In particular, fictitious forces "did not appear at all" in some frames: those frames differing from that of the fixed stars by only a constant velocity. In short, a frame tied to the "fixed stars" is merely a member of the class of "inertial frames", and absolute space is an unnecessary and logically untenable concept. The preferred, or "inertial frames", were identifiable by the "absence of fictitious forces".