Prose Exercise #5 - The Guinea and The Feather

This exhibit, known as 'The Guinea and The Feather' documents the demonstration of the simultaneous fall of a feather and a one guinea coin in an evacuated tube. I believe that it was Galileo who first devised this experiment but the actual demonstration was done in 1761 by the assistant to His Majesty's Mathematical Instrument Maker. This very famous demonstration shows that gravity affects object regardless of height or shape and has been done by many physics students. The original apparatus is on display at the Science Museum of London.

This picture was referenced in an annotated transcripts Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal (on the NASA website http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.clsout3.html) which documents the Apollo 15 moon flight (July 27-Aug 7, 1971) by CSM Endeavor and LM Falcon. David R. Scott, James B. Irwin,Alfred M. Worden were the astronauts and while they were on the moon, they replicated the Guinea and the Feather experiment. The experiment was done this time with a hammer and with a feather which had been taken from a real falcon, purportedly the US Air Force mascot. There is a fuzzy video transcript where David R. Scott gets in front of the camera, holds up the hammer and the feather and drops them the same time on the moon. They hit the ground simultaneously to the astronaut's satisfaction and Houston's applause.

Subsequent commentary regarding the gravitational force of the moon was done from examining the video tape. How high was Scott's arms when he dropped the two objects? The length of time it took for the objects to fall was calculated from the number of frames in the tape before the objects hit the ground. Two separate commentators estimated that the time was consistent with the calculated gravity force of the moon (163 cm per second squared).

Again, I found a fascinating image with an interesting context within a very short time of looking at random images on the internet.