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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XXXV
The sixteenth century saw major changes in astronomy and in particular in cosmology. These changes was go on to have a major influence on the development of the theory of mechanics in the seventeenth...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XXXVI
In 2007, the 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations declared 2009 the International Year of Astronomy to mark the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XXXVII
When it comes to Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and his publications people tend to automatically think first of the Dialogo (1632) and the problems that it caused him with the Catholic Church or the...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XXXVIII
In the last episode of this series, I started to examine Galileo’s last book his Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze (Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XXXIX
With his Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, Quibus Astronomiae Pars Optica Traditur (Supplement to Witelo, in Which Is Expounded the Optical Part of Astronomy), published in 1604 and his Dioptrice,...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XL
Until the publication of his Sidereus Nuncius in 1610, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was basically a nobody on the European scientific scene. Professor for mathematics, the lowest of the low in the...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLI
Many moons ago when I studied mathematics at university in Germany, the first two years (four semesters) essentially consisted of two ninety minute lectures, starting at eight o’clock, four days a...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLIII
Galileo’s troubles with the Roman Catholic Church started with the so-called Letter to Castelli. In December 1613, Castelli had been present at dinner in Pisa with Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLV
Today we look at the life and work of the physicist and mathematician, Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647), who is the second member of what I have termed the Galilei-Castelli school of mathematics....
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLVI
We now turn our attention to the third, and in this series last, of the members of what I have termed the Galileo–Castelli school of mathematics; Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679). Giovanni Alfonso...
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