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tags: #physics #gravity #history-of-science

Galileo Galilei's experiments with falling objects were fundamental to developing our modern understanding of gravity. He systematically challenged the Aristotelian idea that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.

Through a series of experiments, famously (though perhaps apocryphally) including dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and more verifiably by rolling balls down inclined planes, Galileo discovered a key principle:

In the absence of air resistance, all objects fall with the same constant acceleration.

This was a revolutionary insight. It demonstrated that the nature of falling objects was independent of their mass, a direct contradiction of the principles from Aristotle's Cosmology.

Galileo's emphasis on empirical evidence and mathematical analysis of experimental results was a hallmark of the scientific revolution. His work on motion laid the essential groundwork for Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.

Reference

Coursera, "Question Reality: Matter"