‘Spuntar lo scoglio più duro’: did Galileo ever think the most beautiful thought experiment in the history of science?

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 36 (2):223-240 (2005)
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Abstract

Still today it remains unclear whether Galileo ever climbed the leaning tower of Pisa in order to drop bodies from its top. Some believe that he established the principle of equal speeds for falling bodies by means of an ingenious thought experiment. However, the reconstruction of that thought experiment circulating in the philosophical literature is no more than a cartoon. In this paper I will tell the story of the thought processes behind the cartoon.Keywords: Galileo Galilei; Thought experiment; Falling bodies

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10.1016/j.shpsa.2005.03.001

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Paolo Palmieri
University of Pittsburgh

Citations of this work

Thought Experiments.Yiftach J. H. Fehige & James R. Brown - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 25 (1):135-142.
Knowing what would happen: The epistemic strategies in Galileo's thought experiments.Kristian Camilleri - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 54:102-112.

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References found in this work

Are Thought Experiments Just What You Thought?John D. Norton - 1996 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (3):333 - 366.
Galileo and the indispensability of scientific thought experiment.Tamar Szabó Gendler - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (3):397-424.
Why Thought Experiments Do Not Transcend Empiricism.John D. Norton - 2004 - In Christopher Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary debates in philosophy of science. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 44-66.
In the Theoretician's Laboratory: Thought Experimenting as Mental Modeling.Nancy J. Nersessian - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:291 - 301.

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