The mission of Apollo 15 was remembered not only by collecting lunar samples and honoring the memory of the dead astronauts (“Why did they leave a sign on the moon with the names of the dead astronauts?”). The astronauts decided to confirm the experiment of Galileo Galilei with falling bodies.
It was rumored that Galileo was a terrible arguer, especially in scientific terms. For a long time he was worried about the statement of Aristotle that the speed of the fall of the body is proportional to its mass. Galileo has been collecting evidence for a long time in order to fight with supporters of this idea. The scientist believed that the mass of the ball does not affect the time of the fall.
According to the biography created by Vincenzo Viviani (student of Galileo), in 1589 an astronomer climbed the Tower of Pisa and dropped two cores connected by a rope from its top, which were very different in mass. Viviani wrote that both loads almost simultaneously touched the surface. Although one of the ardent supporters of Aristotle still shouted that the lag of the smaller core reached “two fingers”.
Historians doubt that this experience really took place in reality. It is believed that it is still a mental experiment. But the conclusions delighted Galileo Galilei, and he went further, saying that under vacuum conditions all bodies, regardless of mass, move in the same way with constant acceleration.
He did not have the necessary technology to check it out. But at the Apollo 15 mission (1971) everything was ready! Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin performed tasks on the surface of the moon for three days.
At the end of the third exit to the surface, Scott grabbed a hammer and a feather with him. He said that humanity finally had the opportunity to confirm the words of Galileo Galileo. The astronaut dropped both objects, and they simultaneously touched the surface, having spent 1.3 seconds in a free fall.
All this event was broadcast live. And if the experiment with the Tower of Pisa can be fiction, then here the inhabitants of the planet Earth could be convinced of the correctness of Galileo with their own eyes.
