CHAPTER 2 HOW SCIENCE WORKS ASSIGNMENT

MAKING A THEORY GALILEO GALILEI

Galileo Galilei perhaps the only scientist to be known by his first name was born in
Pisa, Italy, in 1564, the same year as William Shakespeare. His father was a nobleman,
interested in philosophy and music. As a boy, Galileo wanted to be a musician, but his
father sent him to university at Pisa to study for a much better paid profession: medicine.
There, he happened to hear a lecture about mathematics that changed his course of study
and his life.
His first job was as a poorly paid lecturer in mathematics in the university, but he was an
argumentative young man (then aged 25) and became quite unpopular. This was to some
extent the story of his life he was pretty good at annoying people who happened to
disagree with him. So he moved to the university at nearby Padua, where he stayed for
the next 20 years.
Galileos work linked the physics and mathematics of motion with astronomy. First, he
felt he had to sort out the errors and inconsistencies in the current theories of physics.
These were based on the writings of the highly intelligent philosopher (and early
scientist) Aristotle. But they were by now of course almost 2000 years old, and although
remarkably convincing for their time, they were not based on experiments. Philosophical
ideas, such as the perfection of certain geometrical figures, especially circles, were also
linked with semi-religious ideas, such as the impossibility of a Supreme Being tolerating
the existence of nothing a vacuum. Aristotles ideas are quite complicated, and many
of Galileos fellow mathematicians did not understand them particularly well as Galileo
often pointed out to them in debates and eventually in his books and pamphlets. In those
days, areas of disagreement were argued over rather than put to the test of experiment.
Galileo was good at arguing, but he also made experiments to test his theories a novel
way of doing things, which werent as convincing to his contemporaries as they might be
to us.
One of Galileos major contributions to the study of motion is described on page 24 of the
book. He devised a system of smooth planks of wood at an angle to each other, and rolled
a metal ball down one side and watched how far it rose on the other. He then altered the
slope of the second plank and concluded that it would rise no higher than the height it had
started from. Ideally, he thought, it should rise to exactly the same height. To us, perhaps,
this seems a very simple, even trivial, idea. But the physics involved is quite complex
involving the concepts of energy and its conservation, inertia and, of course, gravity.
Galileo had no clear idea of these concepts (after all, even Newton had no concept of
energy). He further deduced from his experiment an idea that was truly revolutionary for
his fellow mathematicians and physicists: if the second plank was made horizontal, the
ideal frictionless ball would carry on moving forever! This idea was the first tentative
formulation of Newtons first law of motion, and of inertial frames of reference.
Later, Galileo used this idea to browbeat his contemporaries, who believed that, for
example, the Earth couldnt be moving around the Sun because there was nothing to push
it. Everybody knew that, when an object, however frictionless, in practice came to a

CHAPTER 2 HOW SCIENCE WORKS ASSIGNMENT

stop, it had run out of what Aristotles followers had called impetus. Tom and Jerry
and the Roadrunner often illustrate this idea. They run off a cliff or a roof and carry on
going horizontally until they look down theyve lost impetus and down they go. Galileo
applied his ideas on motion to the movement of cannon balls. The old impetus idea is
shown in Fig 2.A1, Galileos idea in Fig 2.A2. The continually war-making rulers of
Galileos day were much impressed by this extra accuracy now obtainable in ranging
guns, and Galileo found his skills much in demand.

Fig 2.A1 Newtons third law. If one child pulls or pushes, both move
[Insert Fig 2.A2 from artwork brief]
Fig 2.A2
1.

What major contribution did Galileo make to the style of scientific decisionmaking?

2.

Think about the paths in the air of a thrown cricket ball and a badminton
shuttlecock. Which corresponds to
a) a Galilean model,
b) an Aristotelian one?
How, as a Galilean, would you explain the path of the shuttlecock to a sceptical
Aristotelian?

3.

Aristotles theories about motion had been accepted by intelligent people for almost
2000 years in Galileos time. One of his predictions was that a falling object (or a
ball rolling down a slope) would gain a speed that was proportional to the weight of
the object: heavy things fall faster. How could you adapt Galileos sloping plank
experiment to check whether or not this is true? What degree of accuracy would
you expect in your experiment?

CHAPTER 2 HOW SCIENCE WORKS ASSIGNMENT

4.

Galileo was criticised at the time for neglecting friction in his experiments. Both
sides found arguing about this difficult, because neither had a modern (Newtonian)
concept of force. But Galileo suggested an experiment, shown in Fig 2.A2, in
which a pendulum bob is let go but then the string is caught by a nail or peg. How
would this provide more convincing experimental support for his theory?