Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment
Encyclopedia
According to a biography by Galileo's pupil Vincenzo Viviani
, in 1589 the Italian scientist Galileo had dropped two balls of different masses
from the Leaning Tower of Pisa
to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass.. Via this method, he supposedly discovered that the objects fell at the same acceleration, proving his prediction true, while at the same time proving Aristotle's theory of gravity (which states that objects fall at speed relative to their mass) false. At the time when Viviani asserts that the experiment took place, Galileo had not yet formulated the final version of his law of free fall. He had, however, formulated an earlier version which predicted that bodies of the same material falling through the same medium would fall at the same speed This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight. While this story has been retold in popular accounts, there is no account by Galileo himself of such an experiment, and it is accepted by most historians that it was a thought experiment
which did not actually take place. An exception is , who argues that the experiment did take place, more or less as Viviani described it.
Galileo arrived at his hypothesis by a famous thought experiment outlined in his book On Motion. Imagine two objects, one light and one heavier than the other one, are connected to each other by a string. Drop this system of objects from the top of a tower. If we assume heavier objects do indeed fall faster than lighter ones (and conversely, lighter objects fall slower), the string will soon pull taut as the lighter object retards the fall of the heavier object. But the system considered as a whole is heavier than the heavy object alone, and therefore should fall faster. This contradiction leads one to conclude the assumption is false.
Vincenzo Viviani
Vincenzo Viviani was an Italian mathematician and scientist. He was a pupil of Torricelli and a disciple of Galileo.-Biography:...
, in 1589 the Italian scientist Galileo had dropped two balls of different masses
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
from the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Leaning Tower of Pisa or simply the Tower of Pisa is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa...
to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass.. Via this method, he supposedly discovered that the objects fell at the same acceleration, proving his prediction true, while at the same time proving Aristotle's theory of gravity (which states that objects fall at speed relative to their mass) false. At the time when Viviani asserts that the experiment took place, Galileo had not yet formulated the final version of his law of free fall. He had, however, formulated an earlier version which predicted that bodies of the same material falling through the same medium would fall at the same speed This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight. While this story has been retold in popular accounts, there is no account by Galileo himself of such an experiment, and it is accepted by most historians that it was a thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
which did not actually take place. An exception is , who argues that the experiment did take place, more or less as Viviani described it.
Galileo arrived at his hypothesis by a famous thought experiment outlined in his book On Motion. Imagine two objects, one light and one heavier than the other one, are connected to each other by a string. Drop this system of objects from the top of a tower. If we assume heavier objects do indeed fall faster than lighter ones (and conversely, lighter objects fall slower), the string will soon pull taut as the lighter object retards the fall of the heavier object. But the system considered as a whole is heavier than the heavy object alone, and therefore should fall faster. This contradiction leads one to conclude the assumption is false.