Galileo: Fact and Fiction

Galileo Galilei, the famous scientist and astronomer who demonstrated that the Earth moves around the Sun, was born in 1564 in the Italian city of Pisa. The house where he lived in Pisa is still standing. A few minutes walk away is the famous leaning tower of Pisa.

According to the story, Galileo was sitting in the city’s cathedral when he noticed a lamp swinging above his head. He saw that although it swung more when the wind was strong and less when the wind dropped, the tinme the lamp took to swing from one side to the other stayed the same. He had discovered the principle of the pendulum.

The problem with this story is that it cannot be true. Galileo published the results of his work in 1583 – six years before this lamp existed.

In another well-known, but false story, Galileo dropped two iron cannonballs from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa. Both of the cannonballs hit the ground at exactly the same time. However, this experiment was not carried out in Pisa, nor by Galileo but by a Dutchman, Simon Stevins, who has not become as famous as Galileo. These two stories just go to show how easy it is for fiction to become accepted as a historical fact.