MOKSLINIŲ IDĖJŲ TĘSTINUMAS: GREIČIO SĄVOKA
The Continuity of Scientific Ideas: The Concept of Velocity

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines a particular case of continuity in the history of scientific ideas, namely the conceptual tools used in the description of the rate of uniform motion. The notion of uniform velocity has its origins in everyday language: motion is described in terms of time and the distance traversed. The idea was already in use in Babylonian astronomy and ancient Greek science. Ancient science had only the comparative notion of velocity, that is to say, the comparisons were true proportions as being between like quantities. Only in the 18th century was the more effective metric definition firmly established: velocity as a number representing the ratio of distance and time. But the main point is that despite the different conceptual explications, the notion of velocity in ancient and modern science is virtually the same.

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