History Of Physics - Part - I
Thousands of years of physics research and discoveries have shaped the world. We live in today from technologies we use all the time to machines and inventions that change the world all the way to our knowledge of the universe from the very baked to the very small without the advancement of physics. These would not exist. Although we have discovered quite a lot these discoveries happened over a long period of time some of them even by accident. So let's take a look at the thousands of years of work that went into creating the world.
Thales of Miletus
We live in today and some of the people who got us here. Let's start this in the seventh and sixth century BC with a man named Thales of Miletus, whom some consider to be the father of science? He's known for his attempts to explain phenomena through theories and hypotheses rather than mythology For example, although this may seem like nonsense to us now one theater. He had was that all matter was made up of a single substance, and that was water
He may have missed the mark on that one but is believed by some that he was able to predict as solar eclipse on May 28th 585 BC. Now known as the Eclipse of Daly's this eclipse actually interrupted and may have helped end a war between two local kingdoms at the time.
History of Physics
Now fast-forward to the 5th century BC when philosophers came up with a new theory that Matters not made up of just water but a collection of elements water was one, the others were earth, air and fire. Several years later Aristotle also suggested a fifth element known as aether that made up celestial bodies and stars probably would not be made of the same elements down on Earth, he definitely would have been shocked to learn that they are in fact made up of the elements found here on earth. But even though we know these classical elements to be wrong, they do align quite well with these four states of matter we all know us.
Archimedes Rise
Now those are some ancient theories but where I really want to start this article with a story, I'm sure many of you know of which begins with a gold crown and a bathtub in the 3rd century BC, live scientist engineer and mathematician Archimedes who contributed more to the world than any other scientist of ancient times probably his most famous contribution was made while he was taking a bath. Archimedes need to calculate the density of supposedly gold crown to determine whether some silver had been substituted by dishonest goldsmith, he was not allowed to melt the crown to a normal shape in order to perform calculations, though one day taking a bath he knows the level of the water rise as he got in and he used this principle to determine the volume of the crown since the crown would displace his own volume in water, he was able to then calculate the density of the crown using mass over volume and concluded it was less than that of gold proving that silver had in fact been mixed in.
Later Archimedes went on to write on floating bodies where he continued his research into submerged objects and this he describes what is known as Archimedes principle, which states how the upward buoyant force exerted on a body in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body. This principle is why you feel lighter when in water or white is very difficult to push an inflated beach ball under water now the story of the gold crown has actually been called into question due to the accuracy needed to measure the water displacement and how difficult, that would be given the instruments available to Archimedes.
Instead a more practical technique that actually makes use of Archimedes principle would be to suspend the crown on one end of a scale and balance it with an equal mass of gold on the other. Then when put into water the crown would have displaced more water than the gold due to its larger volume and thus experience a higher buoyant force making it more apparent. It was mixed with silver, now physics is not just a foundational science. But it's also the basis of technology new physics discoveries today lead to new technologies tomorrow and this goes way back during ancient times. Many Greeks were interested in the development of machines. For example Archimedes is recognized for the invention of various networks of pulleys and levers. His famous quote is giving me a place to stand and I will move the earth. This of course has to do with mechanical advantage in the amplification of applied forces
Machines that make use of mechanical advantage allow us to let's say lift a car using only our own strength. One notable invention of his was the claw of Archimedes, they use mechanical advantage as a weapon to defend a portion of Syracuse's city wall during the Second Punic War, its exact design is unclear But it worked kind of like a crane using pulleys and levers to lift enemy ships slightly out of the water causing them to eventually flood and sink, now a day’s simple things like bottle openers, nail clippers, hammers bike gears wheel barrows and more make use of these principles.
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