FALLING BODIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 457, 25 March 1948, Page 17

FALLING BODIES

Sir,--My wife has been taking an interest in the children’s lessons, and has be@ome completely bewildered. It appears that Amabel Williams Ellis told them that Galileo had discovered that it was not true that heavier things fell more quickly than light ones. Today (February 27), Mr. Barker said that he experimented with a sow-thistle fruit and a dandelion fruit to discover which had the best parachute, and that though one of them was quicker, the weight of the fruit might have made a difference. My wife, though relieved: of her responsibilities to some extent by school starting, would still like to know who was right. G. S. TOMBS (Whakarongo). (The Broadcasts to Schools Department supplies the following: ‘‘Galileo did discover that the accepted theory of his time that heavy objects fell more quickly than light ones was incorrect, but as he ys in the dramatized broadcast to the professor who doubts the demonstration of the two falling weights, he’d agree about a feather not falling as fast as a stone, because the air bears the feather up. The dandelion and the sow thistle fruits both have parachutes, specially designed to buoy up the fruit in the air and carry it away from the parent plant so that distribution can be as wide as possible. With such comparatively light objects as seeds ahd their parachutes the resistance of the air would alter the rate of feil considerably. However, if a piece of metal and a seed with a parachute were dropped in a perfect vacuum both objects would fall at the same rate.’’-Ed.)