In air? Papers I’ve dropped, feathers from my clothes. But, most items I drop don’t seem to accelerate that much beyond the initial period of “violent acceleration,” which Aristotle sort of describes but lacks the mathematical language to calculate. I think it’s more or less true that heavy objects fall faster than light objects due to air resistance; if it wasn’t, it would’ve been discovered long before Galileo.
From the paper:
it was already pointed out as early as by Philoponus in the VIth century, that the speed of fall is not proportional to the weight: a ball of lead doesn’t reach ground from a specific height in half the time of ball of half its weight.
There’s a reason why you can sometimes get people with the whole “what’s heavier? A pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?” gag.
(Also consider items in water: basically anything I’ve ever dropped in water either reaches “terminal velocity” or begins to float almost instantly.)
My formative experiences with projectile motion was throwing/kicking/hitting various balls as a kid, and those definitely go in parabolas. Most items that I notice myself dropping are objects at least as massive as a pen, and so it definitely matters that they continuously accelerate, even if it indeed looks as if they only do so briefly at the beginning.
Aristotle claiming that heavier objects fall faster,(especially with the observation that the relationship isn’t proportional, and more bonus points if other qualitative features were discovered) is fine. Failing to describe football is the real problem
Also, are you sure the Greeks didn’t have the math? They knew what parabolas were. Sure, they didn’t have calculus—but nor did Galileo!
I think the paper answers most of these questions and recommend you read it! It’s short and hard to summarize without losing what gives its arguments force
In air? Papers I’ve dropped, feathers from my clothes. But, most items I drop don’t seem to accelerate that much beyond the initial period of “violent acceleration,” which Aristotle sort of describes but lacks the mathematical language to calculate. I think it’s more or less true that heavy objects fall faster than light objects due to air resistance; if it wasn’t, it would’ve been discovered long before Galileo.
From the paper:
There’s a reason why you can sometimes get people with the whole “what’s heavier? A pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?” gag.
(Also consider items in water: basically anything I’ve ever dropped in water either reaches “terminal velocity” or begins to float almost instantly.)
My formative experiences with projectile motion was throwing/kicking/hitting various balls as a kid, and those definitely go in parabolas. Most items that I notice myself dropping are objects at least as massive as a pen, and so it definitely matters that they continuously accelerate, even if it indeed looks as if they only do so briefly at the beginning.
Aristotle claiming that heavier objects fall faster,(especially with the observation that the relationship isn’t proportional, and more bonus points if other qualitative features were discovered) is fine. Failing to describe football is the real problem
Also, are you sure the Greeks didn’t have the math? They knew what parabolas were. Sure, they didn’t have calculus—but nor did Galileo!
I think the paper answers most of these questions and recommend you read it! It’s short and hard to summarize without losing what gives its arguments force