Let us repeat our experiment, now using a smoother block and a smoother plane and providing a lubricant. We can argue against this idea, however, by reasoning as follows. This observation was used, in fact, to support the idea that motion stopped when the external force, in this case, the hand initially pushing the block, was removed. If we let the block slide along this plane, we note that it gradually slows down and stops. Let us place our test body, say a block, on a rigid horizontal plane. If we study the motion as we make the forces smaller and smaller, we shall have some idea of what motion would be like if the external forces were truly zero. This is hard to do, but in certain cases, we can make the forces very small. If we wanted to test these ideas experimentally we would first have to find a way to free a body from all influences of its environment or from all forces. For a body to move in a straight line at a constant speed, for example, they believed that some external agent had to continually propel it otherwise, it would”naturally” stop moving. They thought that a body was in its “natural state” when it was at rest. In his Principia Newton stated the three fundamental laws of motion, which are the basis of Newtonian mechanics.īefore Galileo’s time, most philosopher’s thought that some influence or “force” was needed to keep a body moving. His three laws first presented (in 1686) in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, usually called the Principia. He carried to full fruition the ideas of Galileo and others who preceded him. Isaac Newton, born in England in the year of Galileo’s death, is the principal architect of classical mechanics. It was not until the time of Galileo and Newton, however, that dramatic progress was made.
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