LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Galileo: Motions
built 629 days ago
In 1603–9, Galileo worked long at doing experiments on inclined planes and most importantly with pendula. The pendulum again exhibited to Galileo that acceleration and, therefore, time is a crucial variable. Moreover, isochrony—equal times for equal lengths of string, despite different weights—goes someway towards showing that time is a possible form for describing the equilibrium (or ratio) that needs to be made explicit in representing motion. It ... shows that, in at least one case, time can displace weight as a crucial variable. Work on the force of percussion and inclined planes also emphasized acceleration and time, and during this time (ca. 1608) he wrote a little treatise on acceleration that remained unpublished.
Source:
Galileo, though, believed that when the push on the chair is taken away, the chair should continue to move along without any assistance. And, as it turns out, it will if the chair is entirely left alone. But it is not left alone. Friction between the chair and the floor continues to apply a push to the chair after you take your hand away from it. It is this friction that prevents the chair from continuing its motion.
Source:
Galileo experiments with the pendulum in connection with natural accelerated motion. His friend, the physician Santorio Santorio uses the pendulum principle to invent a pulsilogium, a hand-held pendulum with which to take the pulse.
Source:
Albeit mistaken, the argument is made plausible given Galileo's commitment to accepting only mechanically intelligible causation. One can see why Galileo thinks he has some sort of proof for the motion of the earth, and therefore for Copernicanism. Yet one can ... see why Bellarmine and the instrumentalists would not be impressed. First, they do not accept Galileo's restriction of possible causes to mechanically intelligible causes. Second, the tidal argument does not directly deal with the annual motion of the earth about the sun. And third, the argument does not touch anything about the central position of the sun or about the periods of the planets as calculated by Copernicus.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Motions