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5. Experiment vs. Theory
A Radio Talk by Charles F. Kettering
It hasn't been so long ago, I believe, that we read in the papers that
our Air Forces had bombed the Italian city of Pisa. That news probably
brought to our minds a mental picture of the Leaning Tower
and we probably wondered if it had been hit. From the best
information I am able to obtain, the Leaning Tower still stands. It is
a great curiosity in the architectural world. But it is also
a reminder of one of the most interesting experiments that
has ever been performed.
In order to get the setting for this
experiment, we go back to the 4th Century, B.C., and the Greek
philosopher, Aristotle. He was one of the first great scientists,
and contributed much to medicine and astronomy; in fact, for
2,000 years following his death his writings were the only natural
science books recognized by educators. In the 16th Century, a
young student in Pisa, by the name of Galileo,
figuratively threw a monkey-wrench in the machinery by questioning
some of Aristotle's statements.
It was a common belief at that time that all
scientific problems had been settled finally and conclusively 2,000
years previously. But Galileo wasn't satisfied with this. Later, when
he was a young professor himself, he had quite an argument with
some of the older ones on the correctness ot Aristotle's theory
that a heavy weight will fall faster than a light one, and he offered
to prove his point.
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