A Matter of Time
College Course 2
Winter 1999
Dwight Lahr and Beatriz Pastor
Friday Discussion: Week 5
Question 1: How is time conceptualized in Galileo's and Newton's work?
Related Issues
(a) Why does Galileo abandon the characterization of motion given by Aristotle?
(b) What does he replace it with?
(c) What is the role of Time in Galileo's laws for the motion of an object falling near the surface of the earth?
(d) Find an explicit formula for the speed of a falling object as a function of distance.
(e) Aristotle said that the speed of a falling object increased directly in relation to the distance traveled. Was he correct?
(f) Is the mass of a falling object a factor in determining when it hits the ground?
(g) What is the role of force, and how does it relate to time?
(h) According to Newton, do all clocks measure the same Time?
Question 2: How is time conceptualized in the work of Shakespeare?
Related Issues
(a) Is there only one time in Shakespeare?
(b) What does the verse "When I do count the clock that tells the time" tell us about Shakespeare's time?
(c) Richard II says:
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string,
But for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
i. How can time break? What is the meaning of broken time? What is Richard's "true time"?
ii. What is the relationship between Richard's time, Bolingbroke's time, and Time in Shakespeare?
iii. What is the meaning of Richard's metamorphosis into a clock? What time does it measure?
Question 3: Descartes, French physician, mathematician, and philosopher, is regarded as the father of modern reason. Why do you think that is?
Related Issues
(a) What was Descartes' Method?
(b) How was it related to geometry?
(c) How was it used to develop a new kind of geometry?
(d) How did he apply it to his philosophical investigations?
- to his conception of time?
- to his conception of the universe?
- to the human body?
- to the nature and existence of God?
(e) How effective do you think Descartes' Method is?
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