Galileo & Newton: Dynamics, Laws of Motion, Universal Gravitation

[kassy_in_the_sky]

I am writing an essay on why Galileo's work was important to the development of dynamics, with particular reference to its importance to the development of Newton's Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravition.

I've researched some of the stuff that Galileo did: ie. rolling balls down inclined ramps, dropping objects from tall building (Law of Falling Bodies, Principle of Inertia)

What else can I expand on?

How should I explain what Newton did to come up with the Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravitation using Galileo's ideas??

 

[Adrian Baker]

Well for a start off, Newton's First Law of motion was almost entirely worked out by Galileo - it ought to be called Galileo's Law of motion!
His work with inclined planes made Galileo think about a ball rolling down a frictionless slope in a fruit bowl kind of device, and back up the other side - it would of course, without friction, rise to the same height.
If the 'other side' of the slope were an infinite distance away, and friction wasn't present, then the ball would continue to travel at a constant speed, in the direction of the 'other side' for ever. ie Newton's first law.

Much of Newton's work though is based on that of Tycho Brahe the Astronomer, and Keplar the mathematician who worked on Tycho's data and came up with his 3 laws of planetary motion. Newton put together the work of Galileo with the later work of Tycho and Keplar to come up with his ground-braking work - The Principia.