Any Aristotle Fans out There?

[fnord_too]

Air friction is only important in that objects with different aerodynamic properties will accelerate at different rates. It really does not have a hugely observable impact in many cases, but could have some impact. (For instance dropping a feather as opposed to a metal sphere of the same mass).

Cerainly Aristotle had a huge impact on western development. The impact had both positive and negative influences. His theories were considered correct even in light of contrary evidence, and to say that they weren't was, IIRC, considered blasphemous and grounds for some pretty bad retribution. This of course isn't his fault other than being fallable, as all humans are.

Michelson Morely disproved the theory of ether, pure and simple. They made predictions based on the theory, designed an experiment to test the predictions, and did not observe that which was predicted. Their experiment was so simple and repeatable (and so oft repeated, we did it in the fisrt year physics for non physics majors lab), that the theory is almost certainly incorrect. (The probability that it is incorrect is probably on the order that the proof that the square root of two is irrational is incorrect.)

[Aisthesis]

Actually, I think we're both wrong regarding Aristotlelian views. It looks like he did see a difference in speed due to the medium, but he also did think heavier bodies fall faster:

(Physics IV 8, 215a24ff.) "For a given weight and a given body, the speed of fall can be greater for two reasons: a difference in the medium it traverses, or a difference in the mobile (it is compared with). Other things being equal, especially as to shape, bodies which have more force cover a greater distance faster, in proportion as their size is greater."

Actually, the term "force" here (Grk.: rhope) MIGHT give Aristotle some "outs" with regard to the whole Galileo thing. But this quote (and there aren't a lot on mechanics) shows that he definitely does recognize that the medium influences the speed of the fall.

I couldn't find anything at all (in a seminal artical on Aristotle's mechanics) on explaining what is actually happening when you throw something. I think that's a genuine problem in his Physics. I know a guy named Philoponos tried to address it quite a bit later with his impetus theory, but I think that was about the first one to try to capture that issue from a theoretical standpoint.

[Scotch78]

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His Nichomachean Ethics is probably my favorite work of philosophy

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"Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of; for prescision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts. Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, exhibit much variety and fluctuation, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature . . . . We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each of our statements be received." Nicomachean Ethics, I:3

I am by no means saying that this was Aristotle's only enlightening thought, but in six years of studying philosophy it was the only one that I found. Where Plato was a genius, Aristotle was an ape and a draft horse.

Scott

[Cyrus]

He was old. And he was late for the wedding reception at the biggest hotel in town (at the time). Ordered a martini, pulled two olives and started stirring his drink with his index finger. After about one hour he removed his dark glasses.

Kept his voice low all evening so there was a kinda hush around him when he spoke.

The ladies were falling all over themselves to get within his sight. And he was the shortest guy in the ballroom.

[David Sklansky]

"The string experiment is irrelevant. I think the idea was (obviously) that denser objects fell faster, not ones with more weight."

If so the ball inside a bll experiment would still refute that.

[David Sklansky]

"Even being facetious you touch on a good point. It wasn't that Einstein should have guessed QM before his time, he knew about it, saw the clear evidence, and rejected it for many years. He publicy spoke against it even when his contemporaries could clearly see it was true. Work of a genius?"

Can't you guys see the difference? QM is not logically obvious. Leibniz and Aristotle missed simple sixth grade astute thinking that shouold have given them pause.

[JoshuaD]

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Even being facetious you touch on a good point. It wasn't that Einstein should have guessed QM before his time, he knew about it, saw the clear evidence, and rejected it for many years. He publicy spoke against it even when his contemporaries could clearly see it was true. Work of a genius?

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Can't you guys see the difference? QM is not logically obvious. Leibniz and Aristotle missed simple sixth grade astute thinking that shouold have given them pause.

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It's 6th grade thinking because you're taught multiplication and irrational numbers in 5th grade. Aristotle didn't have that luxury.

[fnord_too]

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Can't you guys see the difference? QM is not logically obvious.

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This statement belies a lack of understanding of the philosophy behind the scientific method. Nothing is science is logically obvious just as no scientific model is considered a perfect fit to reality. They are just models that don't have observations contradicting them or what they imply.

The fact that current models have things so counter intuitive as QM should illustrate just how invalid thought experiments are. You can be utterly brilliant and come to inspired results that are completely correct given false assumptions.

[The once and future king]

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he wasn't in the top thousand.

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Would you conceed that he was perhaps one of the smartest men around in 384 BC.

I think that he was even thinking about such things at a time when most Human beings were still shocked not to be up a tree qualifys him as one of the smartest men to have ever lived.

[maurile]

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The fact that current models have things so counter intuitive as QM should illustrate just how invalid thought experiments are.

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Right. That was Aristotle's problem. It wasn't that his thought experiments produced the wrong answers -- it was that he substituted thought experiments for actual experiments when the latter wouldn't have been that hard to do.

He figured that heavy things fall faster than light things. Seems reasonable enough -- if you don't test it empirically.

He also is reputed to have deduced on theoretical grounds that men have more teeth than women do. The problem is that he took a philosopher's approach to these issues rather than a scientist's approach. The correct procedure for finding out who has more teeth is to ask people to open their mouths and then start counting. Not to simply deduce the answer from one's armchair.

That doesn't mean Aristotle wasn't smart. His essay on rhetoric is still one of the best things written on the subject, and that took some brains. But he wasn't perfect, either.