How were Galileos ideas of motion different from his predecessors who believed in an Aristotelian view?
Good answers will compare and contrast Galileo’s discoveries with Aristotle’s views about motion. See the Galileo subsection of “Battle with the Church” in chapter 4 of the online astronomy textbook and the first lecture material. Answers should include: • Aristotle: natural motion on the Earth is at rest and will move toward the Earth center. The only way to make something move is to continually apply a force. Falling objects fall with constant speed and more massive things fall faster. • Galileo: His experiments showed that natural motion is uniform speed and in a straight line. To change something’s motion, a force must be applied. Falling objects accelerate and the amount of acceleration is INdependent of the object’s mass. • How were Galileo’s methods for obtaining knowledge different than his predecessors? Answers should say something about Galileo’s use of experiments to develop his ideas of the rules of nature and give an example. His use of a telescope is one nice example of t
