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- Title
Galileo's Mathematical Language of Nature.
- Authors
Forinash, Kyle; Rumsey, William; Lang, Chris
- Abstract
Undergraduate students do not always make a clear distinction between physics and mathematics, particularly early in their studies. We offer a simple historical example and show how it can be used to illustrate some of the important differences and relationships between the two. The example is Galileo's treatment of motion under uniform acceleration, in which he uses geometry instead of algebra to represent quantities such as time and velocity and stresses the need to test the adequacy of the representation by experiment. The general importance of Galileo's work in the history of science and the fact that it is accessible to undergraduates not concentrating their studies in mathematics or the sciences make it particularly suitable for our purposes. In addition to undergraduate courses in physics or mathematics, many of the points we make should be useful in courses in the history and philosophy of science and mathematics.
- Subjects
SCIENCE education; PHYSICS; MATHEMATICS; STUDENTS; EDUCATION; LOGIC
- Publication
Science & Education, 2000, Vol 9, Issue 5, p449
- ISSN
0926-7220
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1023/A:1008604909404