Galileo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa
by Nicolette Paradis
If I were to drop two books from my
roof at the same time, one that was only a 5 page very light weight book and
the other being a thick and heavy dictionary, which do you think would hit the
ground 1st? Well 425 years ago everyone would have said that the
heavy thing would hit the ground 1st, but they were wrong. In 1589 a
man named Galileo proved them wrong.
There where two theories about
gravity, one theory was Aristotle’s theory and the other was Galileo’s.
Aristotle’s theory was that the speed an object falls is completely dependent
on their masses. If you think about it that makes a lot of sense, the heavier
the object the faster it falls. Galileo had a different idea. His theory was
that the time it took for any object to descend was not dependant on their
masses.
Galileo once said, “All truths are easy to understand once they are
discovered; the point is to discover them.” He also said, “We cannot teach
people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” I think
these two quotes mean that you cannot just be told something you need to prove
it. Galileo was not satisfied with just being told that the speed an object
falls depends on its weight he had to prove that it was wrong. He created an
experiment to prove that his theory was right.
His
experiment was pretty simple. What he was going to do was drop two balls that
were made of the same material, but had different masses. He would drop the two
balls at the same time and if he was right they would hit the ground at the
same time, but there was just a bit more to the experiment. If he just dropped
the two balls from the height that he could reach when standing on the floor
the heavier ball might not have time to speed up and make a difference, so he
decided to drop the two balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
In 1589
he did the experiment. He went to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and
dropped the two balls of the edge. They fell and then they hit the ground at
the same time proving Galileo right. He successfully did the experiment, and
probably looked a little crazy doing it.
Sources for Pictures: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_matrix32.htm
http://www.planetseed.com/node/18380
Sources for Pictures: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_matrix32.htm
http://www.planetseed.com/node/18380
This post is very informative. It definitely helped me with planning my puppet pals assignment, which I was having a hard time doing. Your intro about Galileo and Aristotle are very good. It definitely entranced me into reading the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteNicolette
ReplyDeleteI like how you added quotes, and explained how you interpreted them. This really fit the style of a blog. The examples you gave, and the theories you explained were very clear, and this is a great resource for this topic! Nice work,
Kathryn
Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteI like the topic of your post a lot! It had good information and was very informative. I like how you had good fact in your blog as well as your own opinion. I also like how you included quotes, I think it really tied it all together really well. Overall really good job!
Thank You Caitlin, I am glad you notice that some of it was just my opinion and not fact!
Delete-Nicolette
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI really like your post! You included pictures that helped me visualize what the Tower of Pisa looked like. And I also like the science you incorporated into the post. Really good job!
-Alon
Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. It had lots of information, and I liked how you not only put in quotes, but you interpreted and explained them. I also liked your two pictures because one of them was a cartoon that made me interested, and another was a informative picture explaining his test. Together, those two pictures made the reader intrigued, and it explained what they were reading. This entire post was on how Galileo would not give up. Do you think you are anything like Galileo? All in all, this was a good post that helped me understand Galileo's theory. Thank you,
Piper
Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteI loved your post. I liked how you used a theory that most people have herd of, and explained it. I think that your post was very accessible, and even someone who had never heard of Galileo could have understood it. I liked how you used quotes, and than explained what they ment. I also really liked your images. You added a little bit of humer at the end, which finished your post nicely. Thanks,
-Isabel
Nicollette,
ReplyDeleteI never knew that these to topics could be related. I did my puppet pals on galileo. This alos seem to be a very popular topic.
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