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Galileo Galilei: Motions
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Galilei Galileo Galilei - in Wikipedia Psalms 93 and 104, and Ecclesiastes 1:5 speak of the motion of celestial bodies and the suspended position of the earth. Galileo defended heliocentrism, and claimed it was not contrary to those Scripture passages. He took Augustine’s position on Scripture: not to take every passage too
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During this same period the Italian astronomer and natural philosopher Galileo Galilei made progress in understanding “natural” motion and simple accelerated motion for earthly objects. He realized that bodies that are uninfluenced by forces continue indefinitely to move and that force is necessary to change motion, not to maintain constant motion.
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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acceleration and time, and during this time (ca. 1608) he wrote a little treatise on acceleration that remained unpublished.
The solution to the problem was discovered by the Italian mathematician and scientist Galileo Galilei. Inventing experimental physics as he went along, Galileo studied the motion of balls rolling on inclined planes. He noticed that, if a ball rolled down one plane and up another, it would seek to regain its initial height above the ground, regardless of the inclines of the two planes.
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Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics. He understood the parabola, both in terms of conic sections and in terms of the ordinate (y) varying as the square of the abscissa (x). Galilei further asserted that the parabola was the theoretically-ideal trajectory for uniformly accelerated motion, in the absence of friction and other disturbances. He ... noted that there are limits to the validity of this theory, stating that it was appropriate only for laboratory-scale and battlefield-scale trajectories, and noting on theoretical grounds that the parabola could not possibly apply to a trajectory so large as to be comparable to the size of the planet.[14] Thirdly, Galilei recognized that his experimental data would never agree exactly with any theoretical or mathematical form, because of the imprecision of measurement, irreducible friction, and other factors.
In order to form an adequate estimate of the stride made by Galileo in natural philosophy, it would be necessary to enumerate the confused and erroneous opinions prevailing on all such subjects in his time. His best eulogium, it has been truly said, consists in the fallacies which he exposed. The scholastic distinctions between corruptible and incorruptible substances, between absolute gravity and absolute levity, between natural and violent motions, if they did not wholly disappear from scientific phraseology, ceased thenceforward to hold the place of honour in the controversies of the learned. Discarding these obscure and misleading notions, Galileo taught that gravity and levity are relative terms, and that all bodies are heavy, even those which, like the air, are invisible; that motion is the result of force, instantaneous or continuous; that weight is a continuous force, attracting towards the centre of the earth; that, in a vacuum, all bodies would fall with equal velocities; that the "inertia of matter" implies the continuance of motion, as well as the permanence of rest; and;:that the substance of the heavenly bodies is equally "corruptible" with that of the earth. These simple elementary ideas were eminently capable of development and investigation, and were not only true but the prelude to further truth; while those they superseded defied inquiry by their vagueness and obscurity. Galileo was a man born in due time.
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