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The general public somehow knows two myths:

1. Galileo performed experiments related to gravity by dropping objects from a certain tower in Pisa.

2. Newton "discovered gravity" with the apocryphal Apple story.

Interesting, isn't it, that Galileo died in 1642, while Newton wasn't born until 1643? Sir Isaac would have had to have been a time traveller.




Galileo had no idea that the force that made dropping objects fall was the same force that keeps planets in their orbits, that it was one universal force. That was Newton's contribution.




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