CPB - The Mechanical Universe…and Beyond (1986) Part 3 The Law of Falling Bodies

The Mechanical Universe…and Beyond

This series helps teachers demystify physics by showing students what it looks like. Field trips to hot-air balloon events, symphony concerts, bicycle shops, and other locales make complex concepts more accessible. Inventive computer graphics illustrate abstract concepts such as time, force, and capacitance, while historical re-enactments of the studies of Newton, Leibniz, Maxwell, and others trace the evolution of theories. The Mechanical Universe helps meet different students' needs, from the basic requirements of liberal arts students to the rigorous demands of science and engineering majors. This series is also valuable for teacher professional development.

Part 3: The Law of Falling Bodies

With the conventional wisdom of the Aristotelian world view, almost everyone could see that heavy bodies fell faster than lighter ones. Then along came Galileo. His genius deduced that the distance a body has fallen at any instant is proportional to the square of the time spent falling. From that, speed and acceleration follow with the help of a mathematical tool called a derivative