Was Aristotle the first physicist? The modern view of Aristotle leaves us with ideas of all the worst aspects of medieval philosophy. But were his ideas that far off? We all know that his idea of the Earth bring the center of the solar system is incorrect and had to be labeled so, but according to Micheal Rowan Robinson, professor of astrophysics, some of his other ideas were not that far off. Aristotle had no mean to mathematically deal with the concept of acceleration, so he looked at velocity. He also did not deal with frictionless surfaces, because it is seen in the world.
One of his ideas did analyze motion under a constant force resisted by friction. An example is a body of mass being pulled or pushed along the ground. If you compare the Newtonian equation of motion with Aristotle grasp of the concept, his idea makes sense.
Portrait of Aristoteles. Pentelic marble, copy of ...
Detail of The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio...
Beginning of book 7 of Aristotle's Metaphysics, tr...Aristotle stated in one of his books that a constant force, which is equal to the acceleration of gravity times friction times mass, must be exerted to overcome a friction.
The other of Aristotle's ideas that Robinson analyzed was uniform motion through a resistive medium like air or water, such as free fall. Aristotle stated that the terminal velocity is inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area, instead of the radius. And in place of the coefficient of viscosity, he used the thickness of the medium.
Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea - page 1 from 1837 - ...
Aristotle
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