The English Galileo (eBook)

Thomas Harriot's Work on Motion as an Example of Preclassical Mechanics

Matthias Schemmel (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2008 | 2008
XXXII, 766 Seiten
Springer Netherland (Verlag)
978-1-4020-5499-0 (ISBN)

Infos

The English Galileo-the title of this book draws on the extraordinary prominence of Galileo Galilei in the historiography of the early modern Scienti?c Revolution. At the same time it questions the uniqueness of Galileo (not as a person, of course, but as an early modern phenomenon) by proclaiming another ?gure of his kind: Thomas H- riot. But putting Harriot on a pedestal next to Galileo is not a concern of this book, which is rather motivated by questions of the following kind: How did modern s- ence come about? What were the processes of knowledge and concept transformation that led from premodern to modern science, and, more speci?cally, from preclassical to classical mechanics? Which aspects of these developments rely on the peculiarities of particular historical actors and what aspects re?ect more general characteristics of the knowledge system at the time and its potentials for development? To answer such questions it is obviously necessary to complement the existing studies on Galileo's science with studies on the work of his lesser-known contemporaries; and it is imp- tant that these studies are carried out in similar detail to make the different prota- nists' work comparable. Without such comparison-this is the basic assumption of this book-our understanding of the shared knowledge of early modern thinking and the processes of knowledge transformation from which modern science emerged will remain incomplete and biased.

Inhalt

PREFACE 10
SYNOPTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 12
DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS 14
HARRIOT, GALILEO, AND PRECLASSICAL MECHANICS: AN INTRODUCTION 21
Part One Harriot’s Work on Motion in Context 30
1 THOMAS HARRIOT: PRACTICAL MATHEMATICIAN AND PIONEER OF MODERN SCIENCE 31
2 HARRIOT AND THE CHALLENGE OF PROJECTILE MOTION 40
3 AN INTRODUCTION TO HARRIOT’S MANUSCRIPTS ON MOTION 53
Part Two Major Strands of Harriot’s Work on Motion 65
4 MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOTION OF FALL 66
. 70
. 71
. 71
5 FREE FALL EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR EVALUATION: THE WEIGHT OF FALLING BODIES 109
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS 4 AND 5 136
6 FREE FALL EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR EVALUATION: MOTION IN A MEDIUM 143
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 6 158
7 GRAPHICAL CONSTRUCTION OF PROJECTILE TRAJECTORIES 161
8 EXPLORATION OF THE INCLINED-PLANE CONCEPTION OF PROJECTILE MOTION 183
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS 7 AND 8 231
Part Three Conclusion 236
9 SHARED KNOWLEDGE AND ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS IN HARRIOT’S AND GALILEO’S WORK ON MOTION 237
Part Four Appendices 248
A A COMMENTED LIST OF HARRIOT’S MANUSCRIPTS ON PROJECTILE MOTION AND THE FALL OF BODIES 249
B A TABLE OF THE FOLIO PAGES BEARING DRAWINGS OF PROJECTILE TRAJECTORIES 357
C WATERMARKS 358
D UNITS USED BY HARRIOT 360
E REPLICATION OF HARRIOT’S EXPERIMENTS ON THE WEIGHT OF FALLING BODIES AND THEIR EVALUATION 361
S 363
S 363
BIBLIOGRAPHY 364
INDEX OF REFERENCES TO THE LITERATURE 376
INDEX LOCORUM 378
INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 382
Part Five Facsimile and Transcription 390
NOTES AND CONVENTIONS 391
THOMAS HARRIOT’S NOTES ON PROJECTILE MOTION AND THE FALL OF BODIES 394

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.9.2008
• Reihe/Serie: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science
• Reihe/Serie: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science
• Zusatzinfo: XXXII, 766 p.
• Verlagsort: Dordrecht
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Mechanik
• Schlagworte: classical mechanics • Galileo Galilei • Historical Epistemology • Mechanics
• ISBN-10: 1-4020-5499-8 / 1402054998
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4020-5499-0 / 9781402054990