Galileo : : Pioneer Scientist / / Stillman Drake.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter ACUP Complete eBook-Package Pre-2010
• VerfasserIn: Drake, Stillman,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [1990]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 1990
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.)

Since publication of Stillman Drake’s landmark volume, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, new and exciting information has come to light about this towering figure in the history of Western science. Drawing largely from Galileo’s manuscript working papers, Drake now adds a wealth of detail to the story.Among the findings he presents in this volume are the steps that led to discovery of the pendulum law and the law of fall, by which Galileo opened the road to modern physics; Galileo’s path to the new astronomy of Copernicus, closely linked to his first essays in physics; his subsequent misgivings and final reassurances provided by the telescope.Drake focuses on Galileo’s pioneering work in physics, previously unknown, and shows that time has not diminished its value. He also considers some of the factors that played a part in the development of physics, its classical Greek beginnings, the medieval interlude, the contribution of some of Galileo’s contemporaries, and the resistance of others to his new science of motion. We see in a new light the relation of that science to modern dynamics, created by Newton half a century later. Galileo is better known as an astronomer than as a modern physicist. Drake sheds new light here too as he explores Galileo’s pioneer invention of satellite astronomy, his sighting of Neptune two and one-half centuries before that planet was identified, and his proposal of a cosmogony based on speeds of freely falling bodies. With this book Drake confirms Galileo as the first recognizably modern scientist, in both his methods and results.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter One. The Laws of Pendulum and Fall -- Chapter Two. The Medieval Context -- Chapter Three. Galileo’s Pre-Paduan Doctrine of Motion -- Chapter Four. The Ancient Greek Background -- Chapter Five. Mechanics, Tides, and Copernicanism -- Chapter Six. Cosmology, Mechanics, and Motion -- Chapter Seven. Natural Motion and Horizontal Projection -- Chapter Eight. Oblique Projection,- Other Physics -- Chapter Nine. Astronomy and the Telescope -- Chapter Ten. The Telescope and Copernicanism -- Chapter Eleven. Hydrostatics, Philosophers, and Religion -- Chapter Twelve. Comets, the Church, and Tides -- Chapter Thirteen. Concerning Galileo's Dialogue -- Chapter Fourteen. Two New Sciences -- Chapter Fifteen. From Galileo to Newton -- Chapter Sixteen. Galilean Units Today -- Bibliography -- Index