Schemmel The English Galileo

Thomas Harriot's Work on Motion as an Example of Preclassical Mechanics
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4020-5499-0
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 268, 766 Seiten

Reihe: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schemmel, Matthias

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;PREFACE;10
2;SYNOPTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS;12
3;DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS;14
4;HARRIOT, GALILEO, AND PRECLASSICAL MECHANICS: AN INTRODUCTION;21
5;Part One Harriot’s Work on Motion in Context;30
5.1;1 THOMAS HARRIOT: PRACTICAL MATHEMATICIAN AND PIONEER OF MODERN SCIENCE;31
5.2;2 HARRIOT AND THE CHALLENGE OF PROJECTILE MOTION;40
5.3;3 AN INTRODUCTION TO HARRIOT’S MANUSCRIPTS ON MOTION;53
6;Part Two Major Strands of Harriot’s Work on Motion;65
6.1;4 MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOTION OF FALL;66
6.2;.;70
6.3;.;71
6.4;.;71
6.5;5 FREE FALL EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR EVALUATION: THE WEIGHT OF FALLING BODIES;109
6.6;SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS 4 AND 5;136
6.7;6 FREE FALL EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR EVALUATION: MOTION IN A MEDIUM;143
6.8;SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 6;158
6.9;7 GRAPHICAL CONSTRUCTION OF PROJECTILE TRAJECTORIES;161
6.10;8 EXPLORATION OF THE INCLINED-PLANE CONCEPTION OF PROJECTILE MOTION;183
6.11;SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS 7 AND 8;231
7;Part Three Conclusion;236
7.1;9 SHARED KNOWLEDGE AND ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS IN HARRIOT’S AND GALILEO’S WORK ON MOTION;237
8;Part Four Appendices;248
8.1;A A COMMENTED LIST OF HARRIOT’S MANUSCRIPTS ON PROJECTILE MOTION AND THE FALL OF BODIES;249
8.2;B A TABLE OF THE FOLIO PAGES BEARING DRAWINGS OF PROJECTILE TRAJECTORIES;357
8.3;C WATERMARKS;358
8.4;D UNITS USED BY HARRIOT;360
8.5;E REPLICATION OF HARRIOT’S EXPERIMENTS ON THE WEIGHT OF FALLING BODIES AND THEIR EVALUATION;361
8.6;S;363
8.7;S;363
8.8;BIBLIOGRAPHY;364
8.9;INDEX OF REFERENCES TO THE LITERATURE;376
8.10;INDEX LOCORUM;378
8.11;INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS;382
9;Part Five Facsimile and Transcription;390
9.1;NOTES AND CONVENTIONS;391
9.2;THOMAS HARRIOT’S NOTES ON PROJECTILE MOTION AND THE FALL OF BODIES;394