Galileo Galili lived in Florence at the same time as Shakespeare lived in England. Both his names are the same and refer to the Galilee in the Torah. I lived there on a kibbutz for a few months in 1959.
Galileo was given credit for 32 feet per second per second when I was an undergraduate. It refers to the speed an object falls at the surface of the earth. 32 ft per second is the speed it is travelling at the end of the first second and that doubles every second. The distance traveled is half of that.
Galileo determined that fact by measuring a rolling ball on a sloped board. Apparently others before him discovered the same fact but Galileo wrote about it in mathematical language, giving him the historic honor of finding it.
He also argued, and some say ‘demonstrated’, that two objects fall at the same speed in a vacuum regardless of their mass.
Both issues had troubled me as I read about snipers killing men at distances of a mile. The record is 2 miles.
On a sniper rifle the bullet leaves the barrel at 2,000 miles per hour and is going about half that speed at half a mile and less than 350 mph at a mile.
It takes almost 6 seconds to reach its target during which time it drops 400 feet. Based on the Galileo chart included.
That is why sniper shooting records are based on the sniper lying prone on top of a hill.
All of which strikes me as too much luck considering wind speed and the coriolis effect. (direction of the bullet relative to the earth’s rotation).
Does it make you think about the same thing?
I also wondered how long a suicidal jumper had to wait and think till hitting the water when jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. About 3½ seconds and then he/she would be going 60 miles per hour.
Galileo is still helpful.