Galileo versus Aristotle on Free Falling Bodies

Abstract

This essay attempts to demonstrate that it is doubtful if Galileo's famous thought experiment concerning falling in his 'Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences' (Galileo 1954: 61-64) actually does succeed in proving that Aristotle was wrong in claiming that bodies of different weight […] move […] with different speeds which stand to one another in the same ratio as their weights, (Galileo 1954: 61). (Part I); and further that it is likewise doubtful that that argument does or even can establish Galileo's own famous 'Law of Falling Bodies,' viz., that regardless of their weight all fall with the same speed. (Part II)