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Old 06-03-2005, 08:56 AM
pzhon pzhon is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Default Re: Hello! Aristotle VS Galileo--Hmm Who was REALLY correct?

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I've always heard that Galileo proved Aristotle wrong when the former demonstrated that if 2 unequal masses fall from the same height,the one with the greater mass will arrive at the base at the same time as the lighter mass.
Of course,Aristotle postulated that the heavier mass would arrive at the base BEFORE the lighter mass.

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I haven't read the original, but Aristotle is supposed to have claimed much more than that. He claimed that something that is twice as heavy will take half of the time to fall.

Neither is exactly right. Galileo is much, much closer to right, particularly when you drop objects with a mass much lower than Earth's mass. Aristotle would be closer to correct if you were dropping objects a thousand times more massive than Earth, or rather, dropping Earth toward those objects.

By the way, Galileo was not the first to propose the idea that objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass. He tested it, extended it, and publicized the results.

See Isaac Asimov's essay "The Relativity of Wrong."
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