Related papers: Aristotle, projectiles and guns
The Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli is commonly credited with performing the first precise experiments to determine the acceleration of a freely falling body, but he also went further, experimentally investigating what today…
A complete history of early atomic models would fill volumes, but a reasonably coherent tale of the path from mechanical atoms to the quantum can be told by focusing on the relevant work of three great contributors to atomic physics, in the…
The radiation pressure exerted by incoherent light on diverse surfaces is examined. The thermodynamic rule, first given by Carnot in 1824, describes the limitation to the amount of free energy that can be obtained from a source of thermal…
On November 18, 1915 Einstein reported to the Prussian Academy that the perihelion motion of Mercury is explained by his new General Theory of Relativity: Einstein found approximate solutions to his November 11, 1915 field equations.…
Newton's problem of minimal resistance is one of the first problems of optimal control: it was proposed, and its solution given, by Isaac Newton in his masterful Principia Mathematica, in 1686. The problem consists of determining, in…
In 1918, H. Weyl proposed a unified theory of gravity and electromagnetism based on a generalization of Riemannian geometry. In spite of its elegance and beauty, a serious objection was raised by Einstein, who argued that Weyl's theory was…
The question of the origins of logic as a formal discipline is of special interest to the historian of physics since it represents a turning inward to examine the very nature of reasoning and the relationship between thought and reality. In…
Each observable ballistic phenomenon of a spin-stabilized rifle bullet can be explained in terms of the acceleration of gravity and the total aerodynamic force acting on that bullet. In addition to the coning motion itself, Coning Theory…
In February 1700, Isaac Newton needed a precise tropical year to design a new universal calendar that would supersede the Gregorian one. However, 17th-Century astronomers were uncertain of the long-term variation in the inclination of the…
Newton's Principia, when it appeared in 1687, was received with the greatest admiration, not only by the foremost mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, but also by philosophers like Voltaire and Locke and by members of the educated…
This essay offers a meta-level analysis in the sociology and history of physics in the context of the so-called "Arrow of Time Problem" or "Two Times Problem," which asserts that the empirically observed directionality of time is in…
The idea of the principle of nested intervals or the concept of convergent sequences which is equivalent to this idea dates back to the ancient world. Archimedes calculated the unknown in excess and deficiency, approximating with two sets…
When identifying instruments that have had great influence on the history of physics, none comes to mind more quickly than the pendulum. Though 'birthed' by Galileo in the 16th century, and in some respects nearly 'dead' by the middle of…
The scientific revolution in the first half of the seventeenth century, pioneered by figures such as Harvey, Galileo, Gassendi, Kepler and Descartes, was disseminated to the northernmost countries in Europe with considerable delay. In this…
Euler wrote several papers on Astronomy, most of them in Latin. This is a commented translation of E304 'Considerationes de motu corporum coelestium' (Considerations on the motion of celestial bodies). In this publication, Euler essentially…
The problem of characterising the accuracy of, and disturbance caused by a joint measurement of position and momentum is investigated. In a previous paper the problem was discussed in the context of the unbiased measurements considered by…
An interesting phenomenon that occurs in projectile motion, the "coming and going", is analyzed considering linear air resistance force. By performing both approximate and numerical analysis, it is showed how a determined critical angle and…
Given a real vector space V of finite dimension, together with a particular homogeneous field of bivectors that we call a "field of projective forces", we define a law of dynamics such that the position of the particle is a "ray" i.e. a…
Galileo Galilei believed that stars were distant suns whose sizes, measured via his telescope, were a direct indication of distance -- fainter stars (appearing smaller in the telescope) were farther away than brighter ones. Galileo argued…
This is a translation from Latin to Portuguese of Euler's 'Attempt at a theory of the friction of fluids'. According to the records, a treatise by Euler with the title 'Tentamen theoriae de frictione fluidorum' was presented to the St.…