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FIMV
Other Proposition
FIMV

The Velocity of Fall in a Medium

Beginning from his early treatise De Motu, Galileo studied the velocity of falling bodies in dependence on the constitution of the medium through which they move. This study is documented also by notes in Ms. Gal. 72. Galileo's final position on this matter is expressed by the following statement of the First Day of the Discorsi:

Assuming this principle, that all falling bodies acquire equal speeds in a medium which, on account of a vacuum or something else, offers no resistance to the speed of the motion, we shall be able accordingly to determine the ratios of the speeds of both similar and dissimilar bodies moving either through one and the same medium or through different space-filling, and therefore resistant, media. This result we may obtain by observing how much the weight of the medium detracts from the weight of the moving body, which weight is the means employed by the falling body to open a path for itself and to push aside the parts of the medium, something which does not happen in a vacuum where, therefore, no difference [of speed] is to be expected from a difference of specific gravity. And since it is known that the effect of the medium is to diminish the weight of the body by the weight of the medium displaced, we may accomplish our purpose by diminishing in just this proportion the speeds of the falling bodies, which in a non-resisting medium we have assumed to be equal.

Other Propositions
FIMV
Other Proposition
FIMV