Galileo Galilei to Einstein's special theory of relativity. A biography by Galileo's pupil Vincenzo Viviani stated that Galileo had dropped balls of the same material, but different masses, from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass. This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight. While this story has been retold in popular accounts, there is no account by Galileo himself of such an experiment, and it is generally accepted by historians that it was at most a thought experiment
Galileo Galilei Galileo's life, it was being superseded by the algebraic methods of Descartes. The concept now named Galileo's paradox was not original with him. His proposed solution, that infinite numbers cannot be compared, is no longer considered useful. The Galileo affair was largely forgotten after Galileo's death, and the controversy subsided. The Inquisition's ban on reprinting Galileo's works was lifted in 1718 when permission was granted to publish an edition of his works (excluding the condemned "Dialogue") in Florence. In 1741, Pope Benedict XIV authorised the publication of an edition of Galileo's complete scientific works which included a mildly censored version