Inquiry in the Natural WorldInquiry in the Natural World
Student Topic
Guide, Topic 3 Spring 2005
1. Understand how Galileo’s telescopic discoveries undermined the Aristotelian worldview and provided evidence for the Copernican system.
2. Know the circumstances that led to Galileo's trial and the results of the trial.
3. Understand Newton’s three laws of motion.
4. Understand how Aristotle’s commonplace explanation of force and motion differs from our modern understanding.
5. Understand how Galileo used a combination of experiment and deduction to arrive at his law of falling bodies and an idea of inertia.
Chapters 8 pp.80, 86-96.
See back page for the Astronomer's Drinking Song
1. How did Galileo's telescopic observations undermine the Aristotelian world?
2. Use the Astronomer's Drinking Song to discuss whether science influenced other areas of knowledge.
Chapters 7 pp. 72-79.
1. Be able to state Newton's laws of motion in your own words. (pp 72-74)
2. Can you think of any real world examples that might demonstrate Newton's Laws?
Reading for Wednesday (Murphy Aud)
Chapters 8 pp. 80-86
Reading for Friday
Chapters 8 pp. 80-86
1. You are on a trans-Atlantic flight and flip a coin in the air from you hand, while sitting in your seat. How might Galileo explain the motion of the coin? How might Aristotle have explained it?
Authorship
Unknown
From
"The Astronomer's Drinking Song" in Augustus De Morgan's Budget of
Paradoxes (1866)
Whoe' er would search the starry sky,
Its secrets to divine, sir,
Should take his glass-l mean, should try
A glass or two of wine, sir!
True virtue lies in golden mean,
And man must wet his clay, sir;
Join these two maxims, and 'tis seen
He should drink his bottle a day, sir!
.
When Ptolemy, now long ago,
Believed the earth stood still, sir,
He never would have blundered so,
Had he but drunk his fill, sir:
He'd then have felt it circulate,
And would have learnt to say, sir,
The true way to investigate
Is to drink your bottle a day, sir!
Copernicus,
that learned wight,
The glory of his
nation,
With draughts of wine refreshed his sight,
And saw the earth's
rotation;
Each planet then its orb described,
The moon got under
way, sir;
These truths from nature he imbibed
For he drank
his bottle a day, sirl
The noble Tycho placed the stars,
Each in its due location;
He lost his nose by spite of Mars,
But that was no privation:
Had he but lost his mouth, I grant
He would have felt dismay, sir, Bless you! he knew what
he should want
To drink his bottle a day, sir!
Cold
water makes no lucky hits;
, On
mysteries the head runs:
Small
drink let Kepler time his wits
On the regular polyhedrons:
He took to wine, and it changed the chime, His genius swept away, sir,
Through area varying as the time
At the rate of a bottle a day, sir!
Poor
Galileo, forced to rat
Before the Inquisition,
E pur si muove was the pat
He gave them in addition:
He meant, whate'er you think you prove, The earth must go its way, sirs;
Spite of your teeth I'll make it move,
For I'll drink my bottle a day, sirs!