Comment author:Patrick
23 October 2009 12:33:43AM
17 points
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"Thus Aristotle laid it down that a heavy object falls faster than a light one does. The important thing about this idea is not that he was wrong, but that it never occurred to Aristotle to check it."
Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Comment author:ArjenD
24 October 2009 08:27:51AM
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6 points
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I checked Aristotle's 'On the Heavens' and 'Physics'. Nowhere could I find him saying that a heavy object falls faster than a light one. Aren't it the Aristotelian scholars who said that and who are to blame? Aristotle distinguished relative weight (our mass) and absolute weight (our mass density) and gives practical examples to check that denser objects move faster downwards in water than less dense objects, if the objects have the same shape.
"Thus Aristotle laid it down that a heavy object falls faster than a light one does. The important thing about this idea is not that he was wrong, but that it never occurred to Aristotle to check it." Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
I checked Aristotle's 'On the Heavens' and 'Physics'. Nowhere could I find him saying that a heavy object falls faster than a light one. Aren't it the Aristotelian scholars who said that and who are to blame? Aristotle distinguished relative weight (our mass) and absolute weight (our mass density) and gives practical examples to check that denser objects move faster downwards in water than less dense objects, if the objects have the same shape.