Questions tagged [galileo]

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaulti de Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer from Pisa.

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When was Galileo's De Motu (Antiquiora) Made Available to the Public?

This question is in regard to Galileo's early writings on motion titled De Motu (On Motion) or De Motu Antiquiora (Older Writings On Motion). It is understood that Galileo never published this ...
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Did Archimedes or anyone else prior to Galileo think that heavier things did not fall faster?

I think I saw a high school science film in which Galileo is eating with nobility or something and the scientist amazes a young woman by simply dropping an orange and a grape, saying, if heavier ...
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Is Koestler's ‘The Sleepwalkers’ still well regarded? Is there a more recent similar source?

Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers is well-known as both a group biography of Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler and Galileo and an account of the revolutionary turn in astronomy that, in Koestler's phrasing, ...
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Does Galilean/Newtonian mechanics reject both consequences of Aristotle's dynamical pseudo-law : $ V = F/m$, or only consequence (1)?

Note : my question is not as to whether consequence (2) is correctly derived from Arstotle's "law" ( I think it is the case) but as to whether this consequence is still true in Newtonian ...
Vince Vickler's user avatar
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How Galileo could both possibly say that Earth is revolving around the Sun and develop the Galilean relativity?

I always have been curious about this part of the History of Science. To claim that Earth is orbiting the Sun instead of the opposite is equivalent to change one absolute referential (Earth) to ...
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What's the difference between Galileo's "impeto" and "momento"?

In Galileo's Two New Sciences, he describes an experiment demonstrating pendulum motion and how the pendulum will rise to the same height from where it started its fall. This discussion can be found ...
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Newton's Corollary #1 to the Laws of Motion (Principia)

I'm currently working through selected portions of Newton's Principia, but I'm already stuck in trying to understand his explanation for the first corollary (i.e., Corollary I) to the laws of motion. ...
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What did Galileo's "pulsilogon" look like?

Reading how Galileo measured time in the experiment with inclined plane, it says on Wikipedia, that: Galileo accurately measured these short periods of time by creating a pulsilogon. This was a ...
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What's the true story about Galilei? [closed]

Scientists use the story of Galilei to advocate the glory of the sciences and the stupidity of the church. This is obvious from ironic remarks made by them that criticize its attitude. In fact, this ...
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Galileo's discovery of the independence of motion

It is well-known that Galileo was the first one to state that motions in different dimensions (or components) are independent of one another. Where is this in Galileo's writings?
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Did the Inquisition threaten Galileo with torture and if so, did he know he that there was no danger of that happening?

Did the Inquisition threaten Galileo with torture and, if so, did he know he was not actually in danger of being tortured? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair says: "Galileo was ...
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Did Galileo Galilei believe in astrology?

The Wikipedia page on Gallileo Galilei mentions, among other things: His multiple interests included the study of astrology, which at the time was a discipline tied to the studies of mathematics and ...
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How did Galileo derive the law for a falling body without calculus?

I am asking how did Galileo Galilei derive the equation for height as a function of time, which we now write as $y=\frac{1}{2}gt^2$. We now know that the equation is the solution of Newton's second ...
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Why did Galileo express himself in terms of ratios when describing laws of accelerated motion?

I opened the same question on Physics Stack Exchange, but it seems more suited for this site. I've been reading about Galileo's experiment with inclined planes, and he ends up saying something along ...
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Did Galileo use an erroneous geometrical result in 'Two New Sciences'?

In Thm. 4, Prop. 4 of Galileo's 'Two New Sciences' (pg. 187, Crew Translation), Galileo says the following: "From a single point $B$ draw the planes $BA$ and $BC$, having the same length but ...
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Who studied kinematics before Galileo? Did Galileo base his kinematic research on the previous work of any other scientist?

Galileo is known to have studied kinematics through his work with projectiles. How did he first consider researching motion and velocity? Was he inspired by previous work done by earlier scientific ...
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What is the explanation of rope's strength in Galileo's Two New Sciences?

I'm reading Galileo's Two New Sciences. But as other Scientific Book it is hard. I am having trouble in First day, where SIMPLICO asks this question(Page 7): "But how can one make a rope one ...
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Does Galileo's method of tracing a parabola actually work?

In Two New Sciences, Galileo writes: I take a perfectly round brass ball about the size of a walnut and project it along the surface of a metallic mirror held in a nearly upright position, so that ...
concertpi's user avatar
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Did Galileo state the principle of equivalence in full generality?

The weak equivalence principle (WEP) is often attributed to Galileo. Did Galileo ever state the WEP precisely? For instance as given here? The original principle, usually attributed to Galileo, ...
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Questions regarding "Two New Sciences" by Galileo Galilei

I was reading "Two New Sciences" by Galileo Galilei and therein was a chapter named third day which deals with motion. When I started reading that chapter I eventually came across the ...
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How did people believe Aristotle's law of gravity for so long?

So he says that heavier objects fall faster than light ones and size is irrelevant? (at least as far as I understand) This brings 2 easy ways to see the error of this. 1) throw a big rock and a ...
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Could someone have discovered the moons of Jupiter before Galileo?

As Hans Lipperperhey had made a decent telescope albeit worse telescope before Galileo, source, would he have been able to theoretically view the moons of Jupiter before Galileo if he had looked?
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What was the aperture of the first Galileo's telescope?

Galileo used a refractor i.e. no mirror: but what was the aperture?
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Did Galileo really see Galilean Moons?

I want the answer to incorporate apparent magnitudes of those moons, power of his telescope, light pollution of that time, successful recreation of the scenario of watching Galilean moons using that ...
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Is Spivak right in what he says about Galileo?

On chapter 9 of M. Spivak's book on calculus there is an exercise in which Spivak asks the reader to prove that Galileo "got his facts wrong". More specifically, Spivak asks one to to show if a body ...
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How did heliocentrism survive after Galileo's sentencing?

Did the church continue to prosecute scientists for heliocentrism? If not, why not? What changed? Why didn't the church go after Isaac Newton?
Ameet Sharma's user avatar
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Where did Galileo say "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is to discover them."?

I've heard it claimed Galileo said or wrote: All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is to discover them. Where did he say this?
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What are the origins of Galileo's paradox?

Galileo's paradox is the observation that the natural numbers can be put into one to one correspondence with the square numbers, showing that an infinite set can be bijected to a proper subset of ...
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What were the most important discoveries of Galileo in mechanics?

Galileo was a real physicist and mathematician besides being an astronomer. But what were his contributions to mechanics like throw and fall and collision? Did he perhaps already know Newton's first ...
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What was Galileo's opinion of Kepler's work?

They were contemporaries. Kepler lived from 1571 to 1630, and Galileo lived from 1564 to 1642. The former's life span was contained in that of the latter. So, did Galileo hear of Kepler's work and ...
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Biographical articles on Newton and Galileo by physicist or historian

I am going to give a lecture to school children on the lives of Newton, Galileo and Einstein. I have enough literature on Einstein but not enough on the lives of Galileo and Newton. So I am looking ...
Kushal Bhuyan's user avatar
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2 answers
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Was Galileo a plagiarizer?

Was Galileo a plagiarizer? If we where to apply to the works of Galileo the general standards of plagiarism that we conform to today at our local institutions, would he be considered a plagiarizer? ...
Neil Meyer's user avatar
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1 answer
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Did Galileo bet money on the ship experiment?

Galileo's writings describe two experiments involving ships. These are summarized in the Wikipedia article Galileo's ship. (A lot of the text in the article is mine, and if there are things I'm ...
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26 votes
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Did Galileo's writings on infinity influence Cantor?

To what extent was Cantor motivated by Galileo's paradox? More generally, to what extent were late 19th century mathematicians motivated by, or even aware of, Galileo's paradox? This is an issue I've ...
Dave L Renfro's user avatar