[folk thermo and folk physics]
> This is great example! Not long ago I read a great little
> book about the fab four (Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and
> Newton). The author claimed that if asked in a survey,
> practically all laymen would claim that they believed in
> Newtonian (as opposed to Aristotelean) physics. Yet if you
> quizzed them on how they expect things to behave you'll
> find most laymen are really Aristoteleans. Aristotle's
> physics wasn't really so bad as people might think and
> it definitely corresponded to basic intuition and common
> sense.
:-) I've seen this confirmed in Intro to Physics lab. I'll
bet that even We Experts think Aristotelean-ly subconsciously--
that is, if someone measured our eye movements, reflex responses,
and so forth as we did things related to mechanics (catching
balls, estimating when objects dropped would hit us, etc.)
we'd turn out to be crypto-Aristoteleans. Just look how hard it
is to take a ball on a string, bring it up to your nose, and let
it go, not moving until it comes back! My brain is absolutely
CERTAIN that an object in motion will continue in motion, until
it impacts my proboscis!
> Here's a simple experiment one can do to prove that the
> earth is not moving. For the proof to work one must
> transport oneself back in time to the day when Aristotle's
> physics reigned supreme and before Galileo's telescopic
> observations (should have) put the issue beyond doubt.
Believe it or not, I have had serious arguments with people
about this very subject--"how can the earth be moving when
it doesn't seem to be!"
> Now I'd like to change the subject a little and go back to
> the issue of the "simple experiment". I can remember several
> times thinking why it took so long for someone to do such
> a simple experiment. I was very surprised to find not long
> ago that the experiment had been done several times, the
> first written record being from a fellow named Philoponus in
> the 6th century!! :
>
> "If you let fall from the same height two weights,
> of which one is many times as heavy as the other,
> you will see that the ratio of the times required
> for the motion does not depend on the ratio of the
> weights, but that the difference in time is a very
> small one" -- Philoponus
>
> The question naturally arises: How did Aristotelian
> physics manage to survive for several hundred more
> years in the face of this empirical refutation?
! While there was a long period of time before 600BC, this
is still 2000 years before I'd suggested :-). As to how?
I have no idea. I guess Aristotle's famous feminine dentition
theory may give an indication :-).
-Greg