What is the main question posed by the Vortex Theory regarding the Copernican-Galilean viewpoint?
It questions whether adopting this viewpoint involved sacrificing understanding for greater predictive power.
How did Galileo's work shift the aim of science according to the study material?
It reflected a shift from "understanding why" to merely "describing how."
What did René Descartes claim about Galileo's descriptions of motion?
He claimed that Galileo only described particular cases of motion without inquiring into their "first causes."
According to Aristotle, why do bodies in motion not tend to persist in motion?
He argued that the little persistence they have can be explained by the medium.
What was Galileo's assumption about bodies in motion?
He assumed that they do persist in motion and sought to explain the forces affecting their speed and direction.
How did Aristotle explain the motion of planets?
He claimed that planets are carried by spheres executing rotational motion suited to their form.
What was Galileo's hypothesis regarding the motion of planets?
He hypothesized that planets naturally persist in rectilinear motion and sought to explain their curved orbits.
What is the deductive-nomological (D-N) theory of scientific explanation?
Deductive: Explanation is a deduction from given premises.
Nomological: Premises are universal or statistical laws of nature.
To explain an event is to deduce logically that it must have occurred.
Explanation is symmetric with prediction.
What does the D-N model imply about explanations that lack its structure?
Such explanations are considered pseudo-explanations.
What are Newton's three laws of motion?
Every body maintains its state of motion until acted upon by a force. 2. Acceleration is proportional to force and mass. 3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
What is Descartes' vortex theory of planetary motion?
It posits that the universe is filled with vortices surrounding rotating stars.
How does Descartes define motion in the ordinary sense?
He defines it as the action by which a body passes from one place to another.
What is Descartes' philosophical definition of motion?
It is the transporting of one part of matter from the vicinity of bodies in immediate contact to the vicinity of other bodies.
What challenge does Newton identify regarding true motion?
He notes the difficulty in distinguishing true motion from apparent motion due to the limitations of our senses.
What does Newton's thought-experiment involving two globes illustrate?
It illustrates how the tension of a cord can help discover the true motion of the globes.
What does Newton's bucket experiment demonstrate?
The bucket and water at rest: No motion in Descartes's sense.
The bucket spins: Water moves in Descartes's sense, but no dynamical effect.
Water spins with the bucket: No motion in Descartes's sense, but evident dynamical effect.
Bucket stops, water continues: Water moves in Descartes's sense, with the same dynamical effect.
What is Newton's argument for universal gravitation based on?
It is based on the laws of motion and their corollaries, along with empirical observations of planetary motion.
What empirical premises support Newton's argument for universal gravitation?
All planets obey Kepler's 2nd and 3rd laws with respect to the Sun and their central planets.
Kepler’s ellipse law: Planets orbit the sun in ellipses with the
sun at their common focus
Kepler’s area law: The radius drawn from the sun to a planet