large hadron collider

Physics is an exploratory science. New experiments in physics change or expand our existing knowledge in one way or another. Let us find out how this has happened in history.







10. Galileo's Tower of Pisa experiment

Before Galileo, a majority of people used to follow the teachings of ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who had proclaimed that different weights when dropped from same height experienced different amounts of attraction from the Earth thus falling at different speeds.

It is said that in 1589 Galileo climbed atop Tower of Pisa and dropped two objects of different masses in order to debunk Aristotelian belief.









In 1971, astronaut David Scott re-created Galileo's famous experiment on the moon by dropping a hammer and a feather simultaneously. You can watch it happen in this clip







9. Faraday's law of induction





A sudden movement of a magnet through a coil produces a reading on the galvanometer meaning that a changing magnetic field can induce an electric current in the coil.









This observation was first made by Michael Faraday in the year 1831. Today, electric generators use the same principle to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy that powers our household electric appliances.







8. Michelson Morley experiment





Does light, like other waves, require a medium to travel? Scientists of the 19th century thought so. They proposed the existence of an invisible stationary substance permeating through all of space that they named aether.







