 |
| Home |
| Existing users log in here or new users sign up here. |
| Nature of Motion |
| Types of Motion |
| Galileo's Pisa Experiment |
| Projectile Motion |
| Juggling |
URL's related to Galileo's Pisa Experiment
Historical Reference
Scroll down the page to the part entitled: "The Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Alleged "Experiment". Some doubt that Galileo ever dropped anything off the tower itself. However, a close examination fo his writings reveals that he described the effects that can only be found if he performed the experiments himself. He described that it was almost impossible to release a heavy and a light ball simultaneously, that he always released the light ball first. Then, as the heavy object fell a little faster, it would catch up and eventually both will land at the same time. The structure of Pisa tower is such that one needs to lean forward to drop something. It turns out that muscle fatigue makes one release a light object first. weight. Basically, you tend to release the lighter object first. Galileo was aware of this and also has some idea that air resistance might be playing a role. He observed that the lighter ball always seemed to get a tiny head start, but that the heavier ball "caught up" to the lighter one. The reference: I.Bernard Cohen "The birth of a new physics". Thus though we posted the link, we believe that Galileo performed the experiment from the Pisa tower. More, we tried to drop objects simultanously and failed to do this unless they were supported by a ruler which was flipped. To see our unsuccessful attempts see "OldGalileo" video from the list of videos.
David Scott performs Galileo's experiment on the Moon
Watch astronaut David Scott drop a hammer and a feather on the surface of the moon.