Topics Science

Question I know a little that Galileo changed the Aristotelian world view; but would like to learn more. What is the Aristotelian world view? How did Galileo change it? Could you please give me some explanation? And it would be most appreciated if you kindly suggest me some helpful webpages. THANKS

Accepted:
October 25, 2006

Comments

Thomas Kuhn in Chapter 10 of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions gives a wonderfully vivid description of the contrast between the Aristotelian world-view and that which developed from Galileo.

Kuhn describes how an Aristotelian and Galileo would see (apparently the same) phenomenon: a pendulum.

The Aristotelian would see a pendulum as an example of constrained motion. For an Aristotelian, a heavy body always seeks to move from a higher position to a lower one; the pendulum was simply achieving this downward trajectory with tortuous difficulty.

Galileo would see the pendulum, not primarily as a body falling, but an oscillator repeating the same motion over and over again ad infinitum. If the pendulum were ideal (if we discount friction), it would continue oscillating forever.

Galileo's view of the pendulum as an oscillator is the seed of one of the most productive mathematical frameworks in physics: the notion of an harmonic oscillator. This framework has been successfully applied in mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum physics. This idea has been successful in a way that the Aristotelian's model of the pendulum as a body with a tendency to fall from higher to lower grounds has not.

This is a simplification of the differences between the two world-views, but it gives some flavour of the supposed differences. Whether there really was a dramatic switch in world-view starting with Galileo is a controversial question. Many historians would now like to see the process of change as more gradual.

Perhaps as a start, you might look at the relevant entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Galileo and on Copernicus.