who was Galileo, and what was the significance of his experiment in which he dropped balls of different masses

Answer 1

I have a somewhat different spin on this question than some others. Intuitively, if you dropped a bowling ball and a golf ball from a height, you'd think the heavier object would land first.

Galileo disproved that, as others have pointed out.

But the of his work went way beyond the results he obtained. During the Middle Ages in Europe, the Church was the ultimate authority on nearly everything, and the Church often relied on the teachings of Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who'd lived two thousand years earlier.

In addition to being a deep thinker, Galileo was an . Instead of depending on what Aristotle said, Galileo wanted to see it for himself. So that's the significance of the Leaning Tower story.

But there's a lot more to Galileo than that. He lived just before Isaac Newton, and was probably the greatest scientist between Archimedes (another ancient Greek) and the great Newton. Galileo accomplished a great deal the use of calculus, which was invented a bit later by Newton himself.

One last thing. Nicholas Copernicus, who lived just before Galileo, figured out that earth and the other planets go around the sun. The Church taught that the earth was the center of the universe. Galileo figured it out for himself and backed Copernicus. That got him in a lot of trouble, but he was right.

There's a lot more about him, but this is enough. As scientists go, Galileo is in the very top rank. Hope this answers your question.

Answer 2

In around 1590 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) climbed up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped some balls to the ground. Two balls of different masses, but of similar shape and density that were released together hit the ground at the same time. Until then it was commonly believed that heavy things fall faster than light things. Many people still believe this, and casual observation of everyday phenomena often does tend to confirm this view.

If you drop a brick and a feather at the same time the brick will probably hit the ground first. But this is because of differences in the amount of friction between these objects and the air around them, not because their masses are different. If there were no air, the feather and the brick would hit the ground at the same time.

Galileo’s discovery is important in understanding how parachutes work. They fall slowly through the air because of friction. Find out more about this in Adventures in Skydiving

Answer 3

i guess ur question has already been answered..... but i would just like to add that galileo never actually did that experiment... he never actually climbed to the top of the leaning tower of pisa and dropped two balls or anything.... he just talked about it and as a practical explanation what he did was roll down two balls of unequal mass along an inclined plane..... since the sppeds involved in rolling the balls are lesser than when the balls fall, it was easier to record the data......

Answer 4

The balls were the same shape and density so it worked.

It should be noted that not all objects fall at the same speed, because of air resistance. With two balls, there isn't much resistance.

Things like feathers, which catch lots of air, fall much slower

Answer 5

He was a physicist. He first showed that 2 items of different masses fall at same speed. Earlier people thought that heavier object fell faster

Answer 6

Isn't homework a ***** when you don't listen in class. Doesn't your search engine work or are you just too lazy to use even that?