Posted by: Elena Escalas to Sciences » AP Physics » Videos » Kinematics
An explanation of Galileo's leaning tower of Pisa experiment
Score: 50Neil Zheng says: I found the asking people about your physics question section engaging and it was also interesting to see people that I recognized. The idea that a bowling ball and a soccer ball hit the ground at the same time is still difficult for me to sometimes grasp even though it makes sense both with real world examples and theoretically.
robert green says: I think the way Elena did the video interviewing people and getting their opinions on what would happen before did the experiment and then asking them why they think that would happen. also I like the "people" who are surprised by Galileo's discovery.
Connor says: I liked the interview style. It was very professional. I also was surprised that most of the swimmers expected the balls to hit the water at the same time, I would have expected the misconception that the heavier ball would hit the water first to be quite ccommon. It would be interesting to interview a younger group of swimmers.
Maggie Kidd says: This video is really well done. The interviews were funny, considering that it showed the colleges these kids were going to and none of them really knew the answer right off the bat. They were indeed very professional, though. And the different "slides" were assembled very well. In general, the video is professional-looking and Elena did a wonderful job.
Maurice Chiang says: A good job indeed. I found that the video was informative and helped to confirm what I thought about how gravitation works. The interviews were definitely engaging, and is a video technique I will be sure to use in the future. I also found it interesting that most of the swimmers thought that both balls were going to hit the ground at the same time, but were unable to explain why they would -- it just seems like they memorized that fact.
Hannah Aaron says: I really enjoyed this video. It was fun to see both the performing of the experiment and the presentation afterwards describing how Galileo thought of it. It was a nice addition to include others' opinions of what would happen, and it helped enforce the teaching points in the video when they got the correct answer.
Alexandria Yu says: Like everyone else, I really liked the interview section. It's always amusing to see answers from other people, especially when they elaborate and pull in other factors you did not want them to consider (specifically, Michael Zoldos. I thought his extra comments were interesting). I was slightly disappointed to find that there were no cupcakes in this video, but it's definitely a nice video that makes everything very clear!
Kiana Jansen says: this video was interesting because it was engaging. the interview section added an entertaining portion and i liked the interview style as well.and lastly i had one question: where are the cupcakes??
Starina says: I enjoyed the interview portion because it demonstrated that such a simple real world phenomenon can be difficult to process intuitively. I also appreciated that the video ended with an emphasis on uniform acceleration due to gravity, which is an important concept to understanding the problem.
Marco Gutierrez says: Elena does a good job of showing that the acceleration of the two balls is independent from their masses. However, I think her explanation gets a little murky when she brings in F=ma because this shows that force depends on both the acceleration and the masses of the balls and it somewhat unrelated. I was also impressed by the fellow swimmers' responses. I assume they know the answer because they are educated, but I expected more people to answer with the common misconception.
Sue Choi says: The interviews were engaging--it was interesting that people knew the answer but no one was really able to explain "why". Elena did a good job demonstrating the phenomenon with two balls, but I wish she had touched/explained a little more on gravitational force field when she talked about Fnet=ma at the end.
Emaun Irani says: Like the other people who commented on the video, I really enjoyed the interviewing style of the video, as well as her use of visuals and diagrams to back up her statements. However, I thought the discussion of force as it relates to mass and acceleration was not necessary to answer the "why" question regarding the balls hitting the ground (or in this case, the pool) at the same time. Also, she could have talked a little bit more about air resistance and its effects on falling objects of different masses. Well-done video overall!