In particular reference to the period of a pendulum. We routinely cover this in a lab exercise, in which we tell the students of Galileo's "discovery" that the period is independent of amplitude, and ask them to confirm or refute it. This exercise also requires them to assign uncertainties to their measurements and begin to trust the data even when it contradicts the "authority" of some famous scientist of old.
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"... politics determines who has the power,
not who has the truth."
- Paul Krugman
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Dr. George Spagna
Physics Department
Randolph-Macon College
P.O. Box 5005
Ashland, VA 23005-5505