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Larry M. Silverberg, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University

Bringing classical physics into the modern world with Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment

Galileo, holding two balls, about to perform his legendary experiment. Hulton Archive/Stringer via Getty Images

If you drop a light object and a heavy object from a tower, which one reaches the ground first? As you may recall from high school physics, this is a trick question. Neglecting air resistance, they both fall the same way and reach the ground at the same time – gravity means that their speeds increase at 9.8 meters per second squared, no matter what their mass.

That’s the premise behind Galileo Galilei’s Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment, a classic thought experiment in the field of dynamics.

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