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Before the seventeenth century, the tendency of a body to fall towards the earth, i.e. its weight, was regarded as an inherent property of all bodies needing no further explanation. This all changed some time during 1661 and 1666, when seeing an apple fall from a tree inspired Sir Isaac Newton to the thought that a single idea could explain why objects fall to the ground and why the moon revolves around the earth. This force …

…achieved such a good outcome was largely due to the large percentage errors involved in this method. The ticker timer although an older method, still proved to be able to calculate a good estimation for gravity. The most accurate method was a close contest between the latter part of the light gate experiment and the simple pendulum. Both with a very little amount of uncertainty clearly fell within the accepted values for gravity in Scotland.