Physics Illustrates all Seven of the Classical Liberal Arts

Although considered a highly technical subject, physics as actually practiced, communicated and taught, often uses all seven of the classical liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic (logic), arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony. Furthermore, no other academic discipline at the contemporary university can make a similar boast, at least to the same degree as physics. Examples from Galileo’s scientific works are used to demonstrate this thesis. In fact, one possibly overlooked factor in the 17th century Scientific Revolution may be the creative and radical blending of the seven classical liberal arts, and not simply the use of controlled experimentation.