Gravity is defined as the force of attraction that causes objects to fall toward the center of the earth(“Gravity”). Without gravity, the world that we know would not exist. Gravity is the reason why objects are on earth and not floating in space. Although some discoveries have been made about gravity there are still numerous unanswered questions. There are several scientists who are well known for their contribution to science, these scientists include Aristotle, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein. Over a course of several hundred years, scientists’ views about gravity has changed. No one really understands how gravity works, but people have learned about the effects of gravity. It started off with a philosophy point of view, and it then moved to a scientific methodology view, and then to scientific theory view. Aristotle, a famous Greek philosopher, set the groundwork for other scientists. His goal was to be able to understand the causes of motion. Aristotle explained gravity by saying all objects fall toward the center of the earth in order to be in their natural places. Aristotle based his theory around the 4 elements: air, water, fire, and earth. According to …show more content…
Einstein and Newton are the most popular explanations of gravity to this day. After Einstein, there have been some new theories trying to disprove him. One new popular theory is called emergent gravity and it tries to explain the motions of stars in space. There are many conceptions about gravity that confuse many people. Many people believe space does not have gravity, which is understandable however this is false. Another common misconception is that objects that are farther apart have a strong gravity pull on each other, Newton proved this to be incorrect (“Gravity Misconceptions”). The simple basics of gravity are understood by scientists, but there is still no exact answer that explains just how gravity
Furthermore, if we look at the distinguished Scientist Isaac Newton and his acclaimed laws of gravity we can understand some of the thinking tools he used. Mr. Newton’s imagination and inspiration was a key player during the scientific revolution era. “Legend has it that, at this time, Newton experienced his famous inspiration of gravity with the falling apple.” (Bio.org, 2017)
Galileo Galilei was an italian scientist. He performed a famous experiment that proved mass has no effect on the acceleration of a free falling object. His results disproved a famous theory by Aristotle and is still a major point of discussion and experimentation today. Aristotle thought that when you drop two things with different masses that the heavier one would hit the ground first, his theory of gravity states that objects fall at speed relative to their mass. . Galileo found that the mass of an object does not affect how quickly it accelerates due to gravity.
The theory of relativity is the basic theory about space-time continuum and gravitation which was mainly established by the greatest theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. According to the areas it aims to describe, Einstein’s theory of relativity can be classified into special relativity (space-time) and general relativity (gravitation) 1. The theory of relativity, as do quantum mechanics, brought a revolutionary impact on the foundation of modern physics, and thus had an impact on modern technology. And it impacted the “common sense” understanding that people had of the universe by its new concepts such as four dimensional spaces and curved space.
The key idea of General Relativity, called the Equivalence Principle, is that gravity pulling in one direction is completely equivalent to an acceleration in the opposite direction. (A car accelerating forwards feels just like sideways gravity pushing you back against your seat. An elevator accelerating upwards feels just like gravity pushing you into the floor.
Isaac Newton’s story of how an apple falling from a tree that hit his head inspired him to formulate a theory of gravitation is one that all school children grow up hearing about. Newton is arguably one of the most influential scientific minds in human history. He has published books such as Arithmetica Universalis, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Methods of Fluxions, Opticks, the Queries, and most famously, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia MathematicaHe formulated the three laws of gravitation, discovered the generalized binomial theorem, developed infinitesimal calculus (sharing credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz, who developed the theory independently), and worked extensively on optics and refraction of light. Newton changed the way that people look at the world they live in and how the universe works.
The three laws of motion are three rules that explain the motion of an object. The first law is the law of inertia. It states that every object remains at rest unless it is compelled by an external force. The second law is the law of acceleration. This law shows when there is a change in force, it causes a change in velocity. Finally, the third law states that every force in nature has an equal and opposite reaction. His discovery in calculus help confirms his second law of motion. Calculus also gave Isaac Newton powerful ways to solve mathematical problems. Lastly, for the color spectrum, he produced a beam of light from a tiny hole in a window shade. He placed a glass prism in front of the beam of light creating a color spectrum. In Newton’s undergraduate days, Newton was greatly influenced by the Hermetic tradition. After learning about the Hermetic tradition it influenced him to look at a different perspective into his discoveries and theories. One of the myths that followed the discovery is his discovery of universal gravitation. It is said that while Isaac Newton was thinking about the forces of nature, an apple fell on his head and he found the theory of gravity. There is no evidence that an apple fell on Newton’s head, but the evidence is shown that Newton got an idea of the theory of gravity when he saw an apple fall from a tree. During his life; however, Isaac Newton faced many obstacles. When he published some of his ideas in Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, some people challenged his ideas such as Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens to a point where Newton stopped publishing his work. During his life, he also suffered a nervous breakdown in a period of his life. He was convinced his friends were conspiring against him, and he couldn’t sleep at all for five
Aristotle is regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the ancient era. Although many of his theories regarding the physics of the natural world were later disproved by Galileo, Aristotle nevertheless offered the world at that time a relevant and consistent explanation of physics of impressive breadth and explanatory ability. Many of his theories endured for up to 1200 years, and helped to form the basis of the midieval christian perspective of the natural world. Much of his physics, when combined with Ptolemy's mathematical model of planetary motions, was used by midieval thinkers to describe the behavior of the cosmos.
...just as Kepler had sought to make sense of Brahe's vast amount of data, Newton sought to make sense of all the recently discovered science. While Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and others had achieved a piece of the puzzle, they had done more to destroy the old "universal" theory of Aristotle than arrive at a new one. It was Isaac Newton who finally published in his Principia the "Universal Gravitation Theory" and other laws of motion which explained the motion of every item and object in the universe, from Kepler's elliptical orbits to Galileo's metal balls. By combining the observation and theories from those before him, he was able to use the scientific method to mathematically derive this "synthesis", which led some to call him the "Supreme genius of the scientific revolution.
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity explains the natural gravitational pull of all objects. He proposed that, “matter causes space to curve” (Illinois). To paint a picture, matter itself causes space to bend. Imagine a bowling bowl on a rubber sheet, “the large ball will cause a deformation in the sheet’s surface. A baseball dropped onto the sheet will roll toward the bowling ball… smaller masses travel toward larger masses… because the smaller objects travel through space that is warped by the larger object” (Illinois). Newtonian gravity and Einstein’s general relativity differ in a small difference that causes dramatic changes. “The key difference is that Newtonian gravity has extra absolute structures that General Relativity does not have…General Relativity describes gravity as space time curvature while Newtonian gravity describes it as something living on top of a static space with no curvature” (Brown). Newtonian gravity also states, “all objects attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to their distance of separation” (Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation). Newtonian gravity explains the motion of planets and moons, but was replaced by General Relativity. Thus also, the Big Bang Theory was a consequence of the creation of General
In 1905, Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity was proposed. The reason that it is so "special" is because it was part of the more complex and extensive Theory of General Relativity, which was published in 1915. His theory reshaped the world of physics when it contradicted all previous laws of motion erected by Galileo and Newton. By mathematically manipulating these previous laws of motion, physicists in the nineteenth century were able to explain such phenomena as the flow of the ocean, the orbits of planets around the sun, the fall of rocks, and the random behavior of molecules in gases. At first, Einstein faced great opposition when he came up with his radical new theory because the previous laws of motion proposed by Galileo and expanded upon by Newton had remained valid for over two hundred years. However, it wouldn’t be long before the "cement" in the foundation of Newtonian and Galilean physics would begin to crumble.
Sir Isaac Newton was a man who would keep to himself. If not for that quality he may not have made the discoveries that he did. He would often sit in the garden for hours on end just thinking and formulating his ideas about the universe. In fact, that is the very place where the ideas of gravity and centrifugal force first came to him. He noticed an apple fall, and wondered why the apple fell to the earth but the moon didn’t. His discoveries about gravity led to his equation “E = G x M x m x d^2”, which means “the force of gravity is equal to the gravitational constant multiplied by the two masses involved divided by the square of the distance between them. This equation told scientists in NASA how to escape gravity and leave the earth to go to the moon.
Gravity is the force that pulls two objects together, and the mass of the human body depends on gravity. The more the mass there is, the amount of the gravitational force will increase. The study of the Earth’s gravitational field itself is complex and deeply fascinating. Likewise, studying its relation to the human body makes it even more thought provoking. A gravitational field is simply the area of space neighboring a body that has another body experiencing a gravitational attraction force. As human beings and just general species, our state in Earth is not the same as it is up in the atmosphere or another planet. Unfortunately, the term “gravity” is thrown around futilely these days, but in this essay you will learn its purpose in our Earth, and all the notions that go along with it.
Although Aristotle grew up under the ideas of Plato, through time he began to develop his own theories and views about philosophical thoughts (Aristotle Biography, 2015). Aristotle believed that in order to understand the natural world to the fullest, one must use each of the five senses, all of which we use to this day. Aristotle also had his own views of the world, especially the astronomy of it. He believed the earth was at the center of the universe and the remaining planets, only 5 known at the time, were circling around it (Worldview of Ancient Greece - Socrates, Plato & Aristotle, n.d.). We know now that his views on this matter are not taught and the planets revolve around the
The scientist Aristotle (384-322 BCE) developed many important theories which modern day physics is based upon. One of these theories is Aristotle’s theory of motion. Through his research Aristotle attempted to provide explanations as to how objects in our universe moved. While many of his theories have been since proven to be inaccurate, they provided a basis for future theories which eventually lead to our present day understanding of motion.