What exactly did Galileo do with the Pendulum? What was the purpose of the experiment?

Question

Add Historical Background.....I don't understand something...can someone clear this for me?

Answer 1

There were no clocks back then, so he used the back and forth motion to help him measure time in an experiment he did that involved a ramp and rolling objects. He wanted to show that the weight of an object did not affect the speed of its fall.

Answer 2

He basically showed that every swing of the pendulum takes an equal amount of time, if its a big swing or a very small swing and everything in between. Up until he demonstrated that, it was believed (from the writings of Aristotle) that the larger swings took more time and smaller swings took less time. I don't know why for thousands of years nobody thought to conduct such a simple experiment, you could do it by swinging the pendulum and timing it with your pulse, like Galileo demonstrated to others.