Trying to Understand God's Mind In the interview Isaac Asimov had with Moyers', Asimov explains of what science is and how it differs from religion. Asimov explains that science is a device, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. He also describes that science is a method for analyzing your thought against the cosmos and find out whether they match. He discusses that science and religion are different because in the church they teach only what they believe. In science they only teach what scientist think is the way the universe works. In Stephen Hawking's boo ...view middle of the document...
In " Space and Time" Hawking discusses the history of ideas about cosmology and how our present day understanding of the universe has developed. It dates back to Galileo and Newton. Before them people believed Aristotle, who said that the physical state of a body was to be at rest and that it moved only if motivated by a energy or desire. Aristotle says that a heavy ball would fall faster than a light one, because it would have a greater pull towards the earth. Aristotelian tradition said that one could work out all the laws that govern the universe by pure thought: so there was no need to check the observation. So no one until Galileo bothered to see whether bodies of different weight did in fact fall at different speeds. It is said that Galileo was the one who established that Aristotle's belief was false by dropping weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. Galileo did the same experiment as Aristotle and found out that heavy bodies fall vertically, but it is easier to observe because the speeds are smaller. Galileo points out that each body increased its speed at the same rate, no matter what its weight was. Newton used Galileo's assessments. This idea was first stated in Newton's Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, and is known as Newton's first law. His law states that the body will accelerate , or change its speed, at a rate that is proportional.
