Norton, John D. and Roberts, Bryan W. (2010) Galileo's Refutation of the Speed-Distance Law of Fall Rehabilitated. In: UNSPECIFIED.

Preview

PDF GalileoFall.pdf Download (972kB)

Abstract

Galileo's refutation of the speed-distance law of fall in his Two New Sciences is routinely dismissed as a moment of confused argumentation. We urge that Galileo's argument correctly identified why the speed-distance law is untenable, failing only in its very last step. Using an ingenious combination of scaling and self-similarity arguments, Galileo found correctly that bodies, falling from rest according to this law, fall all distances in equal times. What he failed to recognize in the last step is that this time is infinite, the result of an exponential dependence of distance on time. Instead, Galileo conflated it with the other motion that satisfies this ‘equal time’ property, instantaneous motion.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Norton, John D. Roberts, Bryan W.
Keywords:	acceleration, freefall, foundations of physics, Galileo, history of physics
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics
Depositing User:	Dr. Bryan W. Roberts
Date Deposited:	18 Jul 2010
Last Modified:	26 May 2012 13:09
Item ID:	5479
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics
Date:	2010
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/5479

Available Versions of this Item

• Galileo's Refutation of the Speed-Distance Law of Fall Rehabilitated. (deposited 18 Jul 2010) [Currently Displayed]
  • Galileo's Refutation of the Speed-Distance Law of Fall Rehabilitated. (deposited 26 May 2012 13:09)

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item