Motivation and Physics

Physics started with the ancient Greeks and their quest to discover what the world is made of. One of the earliest Greek philosophers, Thales of Miletus, came to the conclusion that everything is water. This idea seems silly to us now, but in the days of ancient Greece, it made sense. Life is not possible without water and the observation that water can be a hard solid (ice) like the earth and also to into a gas (water vapor) like the air. During the time of the ancient Greeks, this theory of nature (and all others like) it were thought up through reason and logic.

Statue of Thales

The birth of experimental physics is claimed to be attributed to Galileo Galilei. It is said that when Galileo was sitting in a particularly boring mass, he noticed a chandelier high above him swaying from a draft let in by an open window. Galilei went on to time the period of the chandelier using his heartbeat. He later went on to develop and equation to represent the period of a pendulum.

GPS Satellite

In this class, we will be less concerned with the philosophy of physics, which Thales studied, and more focused on the physics of the time of Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton. We will be introduced to various physicists and natural philosophers, and their contributions to science. Learning to understand physics as they did, has opened the door to vast new discoveries and advances in technology. Isaac Newton’s work laid down the stepping stones to Einstein’s theory of relativity, which makes modern day GPS devices a reality. Using the physics we will learn in this class, you will be able to predict the motion of everyday objects, such as a billiards ball or an automobile. The material in this subject can be applied to sports in a variety of ways, opening an opportunity to see the best way to hit a pitched baseball with a bat, or the best angle to pass a football with. As you will see, physics can be applied to any situation and can generally explain any type of motion.