Galileo Galilei was the first to say that objects move with a constant speed when no forces act on them.
That is, if there is no unbalanced force acting on the object, the object moves forever with a constant speed without changing its direction.
In other words, if an object is moving on a frictionless path and no other force is acting upon it, the object moves forever with a constant speed without changing its direction.
Galileo's thought experiment considered rolling balls on inclined planes in the absence of friction or other resistant forces.
Galileo arranged two inclined planes opposite to each other as shown.
He rolls down the ball from the first inclined plane to climb the second inclined plane.
Galileo observed that:
The ball rolling down the first inclined plane comes to rest after climbing a certain height on the second inclined plane.
The speed acquired by the ball moving down a plane from a height is sufficient to enable it to reach the same height when climbing up another plane at a different inclination .
As the angle decreases, the body should travel a greater distance.
From these observations, Galileo hypothesized as:
if the force acting on the ball is only gravitational force, the height reached by the ball must be equal to the height from which it was rolled.
When the inclinations of the two planes are the same, the distance travelled by the sphere while rolling down is equal to the distance travelled by it while climbing up.
Now, if the inclination of the second plane is decreased slowly, then the sphere needs to travel over longer distances to reach the same height.
If the second plane is made horizontal, then the sphere must travel forever trying to reach the required height.
This is the case when there is no unbalanced force acting on it.
From his experiments Galileo proposed that the body could travel indefinitely far as , contrary to the Aristotelian notion of the natural tendency of an object to remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force.
Therefore, Galileo can be credited with introducing the concept of inertia, later exploited by Newton.
However, in reality, frictional forces bring the sphere to rest after it travels over a finite distance.
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Galileo Galilei was the first to say that objects move with a constant speed when no forces act on them.
That is, if there is no unbalanced force acting on the object, the object moves forever with a constant speed without changing its direction.
In other words, if an object is moving on a frictionless path and no other force is acting upon it, the object moves forever with a constant speed without changing its direction.
Galileo’s Experiment:
Galileo's thought experiment considered rolling balls on inclined planes in the absence of friction or other resistant forces.
Galileo arranged two inclined planes opposite to each other as shown.
He rolls down the ball from the first inclined plane to climb the second inclined plane.
Galileo observed that:
The ball rolling down the first inclined plane comes to rest after climbing a certain height on the second inclined plane.
The speed acquired by the ball moving down a plane from a height is sufficient to enable it to reach the same height when climbing up another plane at a different inclination .
As the angle decreases, the body should travel a greater distance.
From these observations, Galileo hypothesized as:
if the force acting on the ball is only gravitational force, the height reached by the ball must be equal to the height from which it was rolled.
When the inclinations of the two planes are the same, the distance travelled by the sphere while rolling down is equal to the distance travelled by it while climbing up.
Now, if the inclination of the second plane is decreased slowly, then the sphere needs to travel over longer distances to reach the same height.
If the second plane is made horizontal, then the sphere must travel forever trying to reach the required height.
This is the case when there is no unbalanced force acting on it.
From his experiments Galileo proposed that the body could travel indefinitely far as , contrary to the Aristotelian notion of the natural tendency of an object to remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force.
Therefore, Galileo can be credited with introducing the concept of inertia, later exploited by Newton.
However, in reality, frictional forces bring the sphere to rest after it travels over a finite distance.