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ARISTOTLE AND GALILEO’S CONCEPT OF MOTION

Objective; At the end of the lesson, the learners will be able to;
Compare and contrast the Aristotelian and Galilean conceptions of vertical, horizontal motion, and
projectile 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.

Velocity is the rate of change of position with respect to time

Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity

Speed is the distance traveled per unit of time

VELOCITY VS SPEED

Velocity: Velocity is the vector quantity that signifies the magnitude of the rate of change of
position and also the direction of an object's movement.

Speed: Speed is the scalar quantity that signifies only the magnitude of the rate of change of an
object's movement.

FREE FALL
It is a type of motion wherein no other external factors aside from gravity influences the
acceleration of an object.Free Fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting
upon it.

GALILEO
 An object can move freely in the absence of friction.
 He wanted to prove the rate of fall or acceleration of an object is independent of their
mass.
 He explained that when you fire a canon, the cannonball moves two-dimensional motion.

ARISTOTLE
 Every object has a proper place in the universe.
 According to him, if you drop a piece of paper and a coin from the same height at the
same time, the coin would fall faster and hit the ground first because it is heavier.

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 According to him, a cannonball when fired by a canon moves in a straight horizontal line
because of a force called impetus made it move.
 Aristotle- explained the behaviour of an object, such as a rock, in terms of the “essential
nature" of that object. For Aristotle, a non-measurable existed within an object that
compelled it to behave in a certain manner. A stone, for example, was classified by
Aristotle as a heavy object, while fire was defined as a light object.
 Aristotle's-account of motion can be found in the Physics. By motion, Aristotle (384-322
B.C.E.) understands any kind of change. He defines motion as the actuality of a
potentiality. Initially, Aristotle's definition seems to involve a contradiction. However,
commentators on the works of Aristotle, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, maintain that this
is the only way to define motion.
 According to Aristotle, the motion of physical bodies is of two types: natural motion and
violent motion.
- Natural Motion: Elements tend to seek their natural place.
- Violent Motion: Any forced motion that opposes natural motion. (Push or Pull)
The speed of a moving object is directly proportional to the force moving it.

Aristotle and Galileo

 A rock will fall back to the earth to be with the other rocks. Since a big rock possesses more
"earth", it will fall faster than would, say, a feather.
 Galileo did not, as is popularly believed, state that the objects would hit the ground at the
same time he understood air resistance. He did understand that without air resistance, the
objects would fall at exactly the same rate.

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Before Galileo...
• Since Aristotle (300BC), most people believed that projectiles moved in straight lines until
their 'impetus' ran out, at which point they fell to the ground.
• During the renaissance people began observing things carefully, and realized this was not
correct.

The invention of cannons also made people

realize that projectile motion is parabolic.

Galileo disproved Aristotle's theory. He dropped stones of different weights to the ground from
atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He proved that objects of different weights fell at the same
speed.

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PROJECTILE MOTION
• An object, called a projectile, moving only under the influence of gravity in a curved/parabolic
path or trajectory is said to be in a projectile motion.

Aristotle
-Initial impetus is supplied to an object, making it move a new region.

Galileo
-A projectile moves in constant horizontal motion simultaneously with a constant vertical
acceleration.

A History of Projectile Motion

Aristotle: The canon ball travels in a straight line until it lost its 'impetus'.
Galileo: a result of Free Fall Motion along y-axis and Uniform Motion along x-axis.

A cannonball which drops from a cliff will reach the sea at exactly the same time as a cannonball
which is fired with horizontal velocity.

WHO IS GALILEO?
Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played
a significant role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance. He's often referred to as the
"father of observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", and the "father of science"

GALILEO MADE SEVERAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHYSICS, SOME OF HIS MOST

NOTABLE ONES INCLUDE:

1. Invention of the Telescope

2. Laws of Motion
3. Principle of Relativity
4. Heliocentric Solar System

1. Law of Inertia: He proposed that an object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at
rest will stay at rest, unless acted upon by a force. This essentially became Newton's first law
of motion.

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2. Free Fall Theory: Galileo famously discredited Aristotle's belief that heavier objects fall
faster than lighter ones. He demonstrated that all objects, regardless of their mass, fall at the
same rate in the absence of air resistance.

2. Heliocentric Theory: Galileo supported Copernicus' model that Earth and other planets
revolve around the sun (heliocentric), rather than everything revolving around the Earth
(geocentric). His observations of Venus's phases and Jupiter's moons provided strong
evidence for this.

3. Relativity Principle: Galileo's principle of relativity states that the laws of physics are the
same in any system moving at a constant speed in a straight line, regardless of its particular
speed or direction.

4. Projectile Motion: Galileo was the first to accurately describe projectile motion as a
parabolic path, and recognized that the path is a combination of horizontal and vertical
motions.

Acceleration is a vector quantity, meaning i has both magnitude and direction. It's the rate of
change of velocity of an object with respect to time. Since velocity is a speed and a direction,
there are only two ways for you to accelerate: change your speed or change your direction-or
change both.

Example: If a car is going from 0 to 60 mph in 10 seconds, the acceleration would be 6 mph per
second.

•Inertia is a physics concept referring to an object's resistance to changes in its state of motion.
It's encapsulated by the phrase "an object in motion stays in motion". This means, without
external forces, a moving object will keep moving at the same speed and direction. Likewise, an
object at rest will stay at rest. For instance, a book sliding on a table stops due to friction.
Without friction, it would keep sliding at the same speed forever because of inertia.

Newton's First Law

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An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted
upon by an unbalanced force.

What does this mean?

Basically, an object will "keep doing what it was doing" unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
If the object was sitting still, it will remain stationary. If it was moving at a constant velocity, it
will keep moving. It takes force to change the motion of an object.

What is meant by unbalanced force?

The forces on the book are balanced.

The table pushes upward on the book
PHYSICS
Gravity pulls downward on the book

If the forces on an object are equal and opposite, they are said to be balanced, and the object
experiences no change in motion. If they are not equal and opposite, then the forces are
unbalanced and the motion of the object changes.

Some Examples from Real Life

A soccer ball is sitting at rest. It takes an unbalanced force of a kick to change its motion.

Two teams are playing tug of war. They are both exerting equal force on the rope in opposite
directions. This balanced force results in no change of motion.

Newton's First Law is also called the Law of Inertia

Inertia: the tendency of an object to resist changes in its state of motion

The First Law states that all objects have inertia. The more mass an object has, the more inertia it
has (and the harder it is to change its motion).

More Examples from Real Life

A powerful locomotive begins to pull a long line of boxcars that were sitting at rest. Since the
boxcars are so massive, they have a great deal of inertia and it takes a large force to change their
motion. Once they are moving, it takes a large force to stop them.

On your way to school, a bug flies into your windshield. Since the bug is so small, it has very
little inertia and exerts a very small force on your car (so small that you don't even feel it.)

If objects in motion tend to stay in motion, why don't moving objects keep moving forever?
Things don't keep moving forever because there's almost always an unbalanced force acting upon
it.

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A book sliding across a table slows down and stops because of the force of friction.

If you throw a ball upwards it will eventually slow down and fall because of the force of gravity.

Newton's Second Law

Force equals mass times acceleration.

F= ma
Acceleration: a measurement of how quickly an object is changing speed.

What does F = ma mean?

Force is directly proportional to mass and acceleration. Imagine a ball of a certain mass moving
at a certain acceleration. This ball has a certain force.
Now imagine we make the ball twice as big (double the mass) but keep the acceleration constant.
F = ma says that this new ball has twice the force of the old ball. Now imagine the original ball
moving at twice the original acceleration. F=ma says that the ball will again have twice the force
of the ball at the original acceleration.

More about F = ma

If you double the mass, you double the force. If you double the acceleration, you double the
force.

What if you double the mass and the acceleration?

(2m) (2a) = 4F Doubling the mass and the acceleration quadruples the force.

So... what if you decrease the mass by half? How much force would the object have now?

What does F = ma say?

F= =ma basically means that the force of an object comes from its mass and its acceleration.
Something very massive (high mass) that's changing speed very slowly (low acceleration), like a
glacier, can still have great force.
Something very small (low mass) that's changing speed very quickly (high acceleration), like a
bullet, can still have a great force. Something small changing speed very slowly will have a very
weak force.

Newton's Third Law

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two
interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the

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second object. The direction of the force on the first object is opposite to the direction of the
force on the second object. Forces always come in pairs - equal and opposite action-reaction
force pairs.

What does this mean?

Right now, gravity is pulling you down in your seat, but Newton's Third Law says your seat is
pushing up against you with equal force. This is why you are not moving. There is a balanced
force acting on you-gravity pulling down, your seat pushing up.

Consider the flying motion of birds. A bird flies by use of its wings. The wings of a bird push air
downwards. Since forces result from mutual interactions, the air must also be pushing the bird
upwards. The size of the force on the air equals the size of the force on the bird; the direction of
the force on the air (downwards) is opposite the direction of the force on the bird (upwards). For
every action, there is an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction) reaction. Action-reaction force
pairs make it possible for birds to fly.

A person swimming in a forward direction pushes the water in the backward direction with
his/her hands. This force applied by the person acts as the action force, which leads to the
generation of a reaction force. This pair of forces, acting together simultaneously on the person's
body and the water, causes the person to swim in the forward direction.

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