Galileo's Discovery of Scaling Laws
History and Philosophy of Physics
2015-06-26 v3
Abstract
Galileo's realization that nature is not scale invariant, motivating his subsequent discovery of scaling laws, is traced to two lectures he gave on the geography of Dante's Inferno.
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0110031,
title = {Galileo's Discovery of Scaling Laws},
author = {Mark A. Peterson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0110031},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
15 pages, Latex. The discussion section has been rewritten to improve the exposition, and to include discussion of a 1609 letter to Antonio de'Medici. It has been submitted to American Journal of Physics