Confident of the rationality of nature and of the Pythagorean-Platonic vision that nature is understandable through mathematics, Galileo decides to study how objects move on Earth when they are set free – that is, when they fall. Convinced that a relevant mathematical law must exist, he sets out to search for it, by trial and error. For the first time in the history of mankind, an experiment is made. Experimental science begins with Galileo. His experiment is simple: he lets objects fall; that is, he lets them follow what for Aristotle was their natural movement and seeks to measure precisely
...more
