The experiment, illustrated in one of Leonardo da Vinci's many notes, shows how gravity is a form of acceleration. Moreover, in these notes it is possible to notice how he managed to describe the gravitational constant with an accuracy of about 97%.
Da Vinci’s experiments were noticed by Professor Mory Gharib in 2017, who was impressed by a particular passage in the Arundel Code (one of Leonardo’s manuscripts that can be read online).
"What caught my attention was when he wrote 'Equation of Motions' about the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle he designed," Gharib explained. "I was interested in understanding what he meant."
In his writings, Leonardo describes an experiment in which a jug moves on a straight line, dropping drops of water. It is clear from his notes that he knew that water did not fall at a constant speed, but accelerated (only vertically due to gravity and not horizontally, as it was no longer under the influence of the jug).
If the jug moves by accelerating steadily, the water fall will create an inclined line, thereby forming a triangle. In addition, if the acceleration of the jug corresponds to that of gravity, it will form an equilateral triangle (on whose drawing was noted the inscription "Equation of Motions").
"We don’t know if Da Vinci did any more experiments to investigate further," Gharib said. "But the fact that he had approached this problem this way - in the early 1500s - shows how advanced his thinking was."
As we know, our mathematician and scientist was well ahead of his time in exploring ideas of this kind (a famous problem posed by Da Vinci was solved only 500 years later).
It was not until the end of the 17th century, almost 200 years after his death, that Isaac Newton developed the law of universal gravitation, expanding on the concepts previously explored. Leonardo’s greatest obstacle was the limitation of the instruments available at that time. For example, the lack of a means to accurately measure the fall time of an object.
SOURCE: CALTECH
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