Aristotle Essay, Research Paper
Aristotle
It’s neat how the universe works. Through out our existence we had our pros and cons. The way we dealt with problems was with or knowledge that we had with our experiences in life, we developed some theories and methods to find the answer to any major questions we had in life. We still have not yet figured every answer to all or problems but every day, every week and every year we are getting closer and closer. What are some of the questions we ask ourselves and what are some of the problems we encountered? Well there is gravity, we never knew that gravity was there. We never had an idea what it was way back, until someone got interested in why things dropped at what speed and why? Also there was friction, what caused things to heat up when they moved along another surface, why it slowed down. To figure out these problems we have scientists or philosophers to help figure these questions out.
Aristotle was born in 384 BC and raised in Stagira in northern Greece. His father was a great physician who had great connections with the Macedonian court, which was maintained by his son Aristotle and by his school, even when he passed it was well preserved and taken care of. It may have been his father’s influence that gave Aristotle a strong interest in anatomy and the structure of living things in general, helping him develop an excellent talent for observations.
In 367, Aristotle went to Athens to join Plato’s Academy, first as a student, then as a teacher. Plato had gathered around him a group of men who worked in a wide variety of subjects, ranging from medicine and biology to mathematics and astronomy. They shared no common doctrine but were united by effort to organize knowledge on a firm theoretical basis and expand it in all directions. This effort, more than anything else, characterizes Aristotle’s work.
It was also part of the Academy’s program to train young men for a political career and to provide advice to rulers. After Plato’s death, Aristotle joined the court of Hermias of Atarneus in 347 BC, and later went to the court of Philip II of Macedonia in 343 BC, where he became tutor to the young Alexander the Great. In 335 BC, Aristotle returned to Athens to create his own school, the Lyceum, or Peripatus. The Academy had become narrow in its interests since Plato passed away, the Peripatus under Aristotle and his successor, Theophrastus, went after a wider range of subjects than the Academy ever had. In particular, prominence was given to the detailed study of nature. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, anti-Macedonian feeling in Athens rose, and Aristotle retired to Chalcis,
Aristotle was not just a physics man, he was also a astronomer and a philosopher, which are just a few of many of the categories he could have been put into. However, on the physics side of Aristotle, he came up with a theory that stated that objects would fall at a constant speed and that the speed would depend on the mass of the object. This theory went unchallenged for some 2000 years. Now, like most people, Aristotle did not disprove his own theory, it was actually Galileo who disproved Aristotle’s theory. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Galileo challenged Aristotle’s theory by stating that, objects did not fall at a constant speed and that a speed did not rely on mass, they accelerate. To test this theory, Galileo produced an experiment that involved rolling a ball down an inclined plane. He said that this would be the same motion of that of a “free falling body”, but the plane would make it easier to calculate the time intervals by slowing the ball down. He used a container with a hole in it to calculate the time. He measured the time by finding the mass of the water that ran through the hole during the time interval it took the ball to run down the slope. Thus the fact that he applied the following equation that is used even today:
A = 2 d/( t)
From this equation, he then figured out that the ball had a uniform acceleration, therefore disproving Aristotle’s theory. This theory helps us now to not only know that there is acceleration in moving objects but also let us figure out the actual speeds of the accelerations in things such as cars, planes, trains etc.
+ A side note is that Galileo, even though he had disproved Aristotle’s theory, still had a very hard time getting people to believe his new theory because Aristotle was such a highly respected man and had many followers.
Many of life’s great legends are categorized into a single group, being it physics, astronomy, chemistry, philosophy, any of them, not many have done what Aristotle has done. He wasn’t categorized in one group, he was associated with many groups which makes him an even greater legend. That is what makes him so interesting and why he was chosen over other great physicists. Not only was information given about physics, but all aspects of his career. Creating a wider learning environment about him and making this more interesting for people interested in him because it gives them a wider variety of topics that can interest someone. So, in conclusion, if you want to learn about a man who in many people’s minds is one of the most, if not the most intelligent man that has been around, learn about Aristotle.