Universal Laws of

Physics: Aristotle
and Galileo
CHAPTER 7
 Aristotle and Galileo : A story of
two conflicting ideas about motion

Motion- it is the movement or

change in location of an object
overtime.It is often described in
terms of direction,location and
speed.
*Aristotle’s View of Motion

 Back in the 4th century B.C., the Greek philosopher

Aristotle wrote several works,one of which is “Physics”
which contains his ideas on the nature of motion.
Aristotle’s writings on motion are important for at least 2
reasons :
1. They influenced scientific thought for almost two centuries.
2. They provide a “common sense” framework that most
people would agree “make sense.”
 Two kinds of motion:

 1. Natural Motion – This idea said that objects seek their natural places. In
Aristotle’s view, natural motion proceeds from the “nature” of an
object.He believed that all objects were some combination of four
elements- earth,water,air and fire.
 Any motion that an object does naturally - without being forced - was
classified by Aristotle as a natural motion.
Examples of natural motions include:
*A book lying at rest on a table naturally remains at rest.
*If you let go of a book it naturally falls toward the earth.
*Smoke naturally rises.
 2. Violent Motion- results from pushes and pulls. It is externally
caused and is imparted to objects which move not by
themselves,not by their nature, but because of impressed forces
of push or pull.
 Aristotle classified any motion that required a force as a "violent
motion".
Examples of violent motion include:
*Pushing a book along a table.
*Lifting a book.
 *Galileo’s View of
Motion
 During the time he taught the mathematical
subjects at the university of Pisa (1589-1592),
Galileo began a book, De motu ("On motion"),
which was never published. In it, we can trace the
early development of his ideas concerning motion.
 Galileo was considered as the FATHER OF
EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE.
UNIFORMLY ACCELERATED VERTICAL
MOTION: MOTION OF FALLING BODIES

 In the period before Galileo, scientists thought that force causes

speed as claimed by Aristotle. He made two assertions about
how things fall:
1. That heavier objects would strive harder and fall faster than
lighter ones,the speed being proportional to the weight.
2. The speed of fall of a given object depends inversely on the
density of the medium it is falling through.
Aristotle’s ideas were accepted as fact for nearly 2000 years.
 Galileo then began his research, first disproving
the Aristotlelian contention that bodies of
different weights fall at different speeds.
According to legend and this is one of the most
famous stories,that Galileo dropped balls of
different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa
to demonstrate that their time of descent was
independent of their mass(excluding the effect
of air resistance). This was contrary to what
Aristotle had taught.
Galileo claimed that a naturally falling object would
gain equal amounts of velocity in equal amounts.
A free-falling object is an object that is
falling under the sole influence of gravity.
That is to say that any object that is moving
and being acted upon only by the force of
gravity is said to be “in a state of free fall”.
Whatever the object is falling downward or
rising upward toward its highest peak, if it is
under the influence of gravity, then its
acceleration value is 9.8 m/s².
Gravity

1) Causes free falling objects to accelerate at

9.8 m/s² toward the center of the earth.

2) The symbol is g (for acceleration due to

gravity)
Gravity

 Positive or negative?...that’s the

question!

By convention….
 + 9.8 when an object is falling
towards the earth
 - 9.8 when an object is moving
away from the earth
 How did Galileo discover the law of
free fall with the inclined plane?
 Galileo tried his revolutionary idea through an experiment. This ushered in
the beginning of modern science.
 He used inclined planes for his experiment.The ball was made to roll a
known distance down the ramp and the time it took for the ball to move the
known distance was measured. At that time there was no modern timing
device so he used instead a water clock.
 On downward slopoimg planes, the force of gravity increases the speed of
the ball while on an upward slope ,the force of gravity increases the speed
of the ball while on an upward slope, the force decreases its speed. Rolling
on a level surface, the ball neither rolls with nor against the vertical force of
gravity it neither speeds up nor slows down.The rolling ball maintains a
constant speed.
 Galileo’s Law of Falling Bodies

 When the term object in free fall is used,this term includes the dropping
as well as the upward or downward throwing. This is an ideal case in
which air resistance is to be ignored. Any object that falls freely
experiences an acceleration directed to the center of the Earth or
downward as commonly described.
 In a state of free fall, the object is acted upon only by the force of
gravity, thus the acceleration it requires is called acceleration due to
gravity.
 The magnitude of this free fall acceleration is denoted by the symbol g,
whose value slightly varies with the altitude and the latitude.
 Near the surface of the Earth the g value is approximately 9.8m/s².
 The kinematic equations for a rectilinear vertical
movement under the acceleration of gravity are
the same as any movement with constant
acceleration :
v= v – gt velocity as function of time
d= vit + ½ at² displacement as function of time
v²= v² + 2ad velocity as function of displacement