Scribd
Upload
36 views1 page

Mechanics - Medieval Age

The document discusses the history of theories of motion from Aristotle through the Middle Ages. It describes criticisms of Aristotle and the development of the concept of inertia by figures such as Ibn Sina, al-Baghdaadi, and Buridan.

Uploaded by

Stardragon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
36 views1 page

Mechanics - Medieval Age

The document discusses the history of theories of motion from Aristotle through the Middle Ages. It describes criticisms of Aristotle and the development of the concept of inertia by figures such as Ibn Sina, al-Baghdaadi, and Buridan.

Uploaded by

Stardragon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's theories were criticized and modified by a number

of figures, beginning with John Philoponus in the 6th century. A central problem
was that of projectile motion, which was discussed by Hipparchus and Philoponus.

Persian Islamic polymath Ibn Sīnā published his theory of motion in The Book of
Healing (1020). He said that an impetus is imparted to a projectile by the thrower,
and viewed it as persistent, requiring external forces such as air resistance to
dissipate it.[7][8][9] Ibn Sina made distinction between 'force' and 'inclination'
(called "mayl"), and argued that an object gained mayl when the object is in
opposition to its natural motion. So he concluded that continuation of motion is
attributed to the inclination that is transferred to the object, and that object
will be in motion until the mayl is spent. He also claimed that a projectile in a
vacuum would not stop unless it is acted upon. This conception of motion is
consistent with Newton's first law of motion, inertia, which states that an object
in motion will stay in motion unless it is acted on by an external force.[10] This
idea, which dissented from the Aristotelian view, was later described as "impetus"
by John Buridan, who was influenced by Ibn Sina's Book of Healing.[11]

On the question of a body subject to a constant (uniform) force, the 12th-century


Jewish-Arab scholar Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi (born Nathanel, Iraqi,
of Baghdad) stated that constant force imparts constant acceleration. According to
Shlomo Pines, al-Baghdaadi's theory of motion was "the oldest negation of
Aristotle's fundamental dynamic law [namely, that a constant force produces a
uniform motion], [and is thus an] anticipation in a vague fashion of the
fundamental law of classical mechanics [namely, that a force applied continuously
produces acceleration]."[12]

Influenced by earlier writers such as Ibn Sina[11] and al-Baghdaadi,[13] the 14th-
century French priest Jean Buridan developed the theory of impetus, which later
developed into the modern theories of inertia, velocity, acceleration and momentum.
This work and others was developed in 14th-century England by the Oxford
Calculators such as Thomas Bradwardine, who studied and formulated various laws
regarding falling bodies. The concept that the main properties of a body are
uniformly accelerated motion (as of falling bodies) was worked out by the 14th-
century Oxford Calculators

You might also like