The Tower at Pisa
The idea: the only source for the tower drop is a pupil writing sixty-five years later, who had not been born.
Read it
Who is in this book
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Danya a child of the Green Asks "how do we know?" -
Beto a child of the Green Takes things apart -
Trace Follow a story back to where it started; copies are not sources from TruthQuest -
Claim Before you check a story, say exactly what it claims from TruthQuest -
Weigh Ask who was in a position to know, and when they said it from TruthQuest -
Inkling a child of the Green Names what she notices -
Lan a child of the Green Goes first; makes a friend in a minute - Tara a child of the Green Listens longest, speaks last
Every recurring character has a short tune, so you can tell who is on stage before a word is said. The tunes play only when you tap, and the Reading Access sound switch turns them off.
The Honest Page
Which parts are true, stretched or made up — and what does nobody know?
True
- Galileo argued that a heavy body and a light one, falling through air from the same height, reach the ground at very nearly the same time, against Aristotle's teaching. He set the argument out in his Two New Sciences, published in 1638. Source
- The only account of Galileo dropping weights from the Leaning Tower comes from his last pupil, Vincenzo Viviani, in a life of Galileo composed in 1654 and published in 1717. Viviani says the drops were made 'in the presence of other professors and all the students'. Source
- Viviani was born in 1622, thirty-three years after Galileo came to Pisa in 1589, and became Galileo's assistant in 1638. He wrote the tower story sixty-five years after 1589. Source
- In 1586 Simon Stevin and Jan Cornets de Groot dropped two lead balls together from the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, about thirty feet, and they reached the ground at the same time. Stevin printed it that year. Source
- Galileo was twenty-five when he came to Pisa in 1589 (born 1564). Two New Sciences came out forty-nine years later.
Stretched
- The whole university watched Galileo prove Aristotle wrong in one afternoon. What we simplified: Only Viviani mentions a crowd, writing decades later. The argument against Aristotle took Galileo years, and others had tested it before him.
Made up
- The drying room, the corridor of doors, Claim, Trace and Weigh as people in it, the Friday Paper and the notes in the box are made up. Galileo, Viviani, Stevin, de Groot and their dates are real.
Nobody knows
- Whether Galileo ever dropped anything from the Leaning Tower. Galileo never describes it, and many historians think it was a thought experiment. Source
Tell it back
Tell the story in your own words: who was there, what went wrong, and what they found out. Then the second page of Danya's two-column notebook goes on your belt.
On your belt: the second page of Danya's two-column notebook.
Your belt lives on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Ring the hammer for someone
Pick this book for someone younger. The link carries only the book, and it will wait for them on the Green.