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SUPPLEMENTS

We first need to clarify the goal of physics as science. The best way to do this is by bringing into relief the basic trend of physics that has come to light ever more clearly in the course of its history from Galileo to the present. Ancient and medieval philosophy of nature1 sought to investigate the metaphysical essence and hidden causes of the appearances that impose themselves on us in immediate reality. In contrast to this metaphysical speculation about nature, Galileos science signifies something fundamentally new in its method. It seeks to gain mastery over the diversity of appearances by means of laws, and how it arrives at lawsthis is its strangely new accomplishment. Because the basic tendency of physics can be seen most clearly in this method of gaining knowledge of laws, this method can be explained by using a classic example, namely, Galileos discovery of the law of gravity. The old way of examining nature would have proceeded by attempting, through the observation of the individual instances of the appearance of gravity, to draw out what was common to all appearances of gravity, in order then to infer from this the essence of gravity. Galileo did not begin with observation of individual instances of the appearance of gravity but rather with a general assumption (hypothesis) that runs: Bodieshaving lost their supportfall in such a way that their velocity increases in proportion to time (v = g t), that is, bodies fall with equally accelerated motion. The initial velocity is 0, the final velocity v = g t. If we use the g mean velocity 2 t, then we have a uniform motion. The basic definitional formula for this is s = c t: the distance travelled is equal to the product of velocg ity and time. In our case c = 2 t. The insertion of this value into the last forg 2 mula yields s = t . Galileo tested this equation against concrete instances, and 2 it was confirmed by them. Thus the above assumption, from which the law was obtained in a purely deductive manner and subsequently experimentally confirmed, is valid. The entire train of thought was intentionally depicted in detail in order to demonstrate that nowhere in the whole examination was there talk of this or that particular body, this or that duration of time, this or that space of a falling body. The assumption v = g t, which subsequently becomes a law by way of a conclusion drawn on the basis of the experiment that verifies it, is a general one about all bodies. Thus two peculiar features are found in this new method: (1) An assumption is set up that makes it possible to grasp conceptually appearances in a particular fieldhere this means appearances of motion. (2) The assumption does not posit a hidden quality as the cause that explains the appearances but rather contains mathematically understandablei.e., measurablerelations between the ideally conceived moments of the appearances. This manner of formulating problems that Galileo for the first time consciously used has in time gained dominance in the individual branches of physics (mechanics, acoustics, theory of heat, optics, magnetic theory, theory of electricity). In each of these fields of