a) Compare Aristotle\'s concept of inertia with the ideas of Galileo and Newton.
ID: 1571059 • Letter: A
Question
a) Compare Aristotle's concept of inertia with the ideas of Galileo and Newton. In making your comparison, state the concept as each interpreted it (in your own words) and give the similarities and differences.
b) If a baseball rolls across the ground and comes to a stop, how would Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton interpret the behavior of the ball?
Answer the following questions:
Explain mechanical equilibrium.
1) If a book rests motionless on a table, what forces are acting on it?
2) What is the net force on the book?
3) How would the magnitude of the forces change if a second book of equal weight was placed on top of the first book?
4) A 50 kilogram student stands in an elevator. How much force does she exert on the elevator floor if:
- The elevator is stationary?
- The elevator accelerates upward at 1 meter per second squared (m/s2)?
5) Distinguish between speed, velocity, and acceleration. Explain the quantities in terms of "freely falling" objects.
6) Answer the following questions:
- How long would it take for an object dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa (height 54.6 meters) to hit the ground?
- How fast was the object traveling at the moment of impact?
7) Construct a table of values of velocity and total distance fallen at the end of each half-second during the first 5 seconds for a stone at rest dropped from a very tall building. Include columns for time, velocity, and total distance.
8) A parachute dropped from a 30 meter-high cliff falls with a constant velocity of 1.5 meters per second. Twenty-two seconds later a stone is dropped from the cliff.
- How long does it take for the parachute to hit the ground?
- How long does it take for the stone to hit the ground?
- Which one will hit the ground first and why?
9) Galileo used inclined planes to investigate "free fall." Why did he do that instead of experimenting with velocity by dropping objects?
10) Explain the following terms:
- linear motion
- constant velocity
- accelerated motion
Explanation / Answer
As per Aristotle – ‘natural state of an object is the state of rest. Every object tends to maintain a state of rest and resists any change in its state of rest. A force is always required to move an object’
As per Galileo and Newton – ‘natural state of an object is the state of rest as well as state of uniform motion. Every object tends to maintain a state of rest or state of uniform motion and resists any change in its state of rest or state of uniform motion. A force is always required to change the state of an object’
Clearly from similarities point of view, both of them talk about the natural state of an object. For both of them, rest is a natural state of an object. For both of them, a force is always required to change the state.
From difference point of view, as per Aristotle, the state of uniform motion is not the natural state of an object and a force is always required to move an object with uniform velocity (which looks like to be true for natural world around us, though it is not so because in natural world there is force of friction against which a force is needed to be applied) while as per Galileo and Newton, the state of uniform motion is a natural state of an object and no force is required to move an object with uniform velocity.
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