Infinite degrees of speed marin mersenne and the debate over Galileo's law of free fall

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 4, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 269-328

  Palmerino, Carla Rita ^a  

^a RADBOUD UNIVERSITY NIJMEGEN   (Netherlands)

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EID: 28244481935     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338299X00076     Document Type: Review

References (108)

1. NB: The abbreviations used in this article refer to the following texts: C.M.= Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, religieux minime, ed. C. De Waard, R. Pintard, B. Rochot, A. Beaulieu, 17 vols. (Paris, 1945-1988).
2. A.T.= Oeuvres de Descartess ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, 13 vols. (Paris, 1897-1913).
3. G.G.= Le Opere di Galileo Galilei (Edizione Nazionale), ed. A. Favaro, 20 vols. (Florence, 1890-1909).
4. P.G.= Petri Gassendi Opera Omnia, 6 vols. (Lyon, 1658).
5. 1 In letters written between 1628 and 1631, Mersenne repeatedly expressed his conviction that bodies fell with uniform motion. Despite the fact that this hypothesis had been refuted by Cornier, (Cornier to Mersenne, 29 March 1628, C.M., 2: 52)
6. Descartes (Descartes to Mersenne, 18 December 1629, A.T., 1: 94; CM., 2: 344) and Beeckman (Beeckman to Mersenne, 30 April 1630, CM., 2: 457)
7. Mersenne continued to express his support for it in 1631 (Mersenne to Rey, 1 September 1631, CM., 3: 188).
8. Mersenne's position is summarized and criticized by Beeckman in Journal tenu par Isaac Beeckmaa de 1604 à 1634, ed. C. De Waard, 4 vols. (The Hague, 1939-1953), 3: 181-182 (December 1630).
9. M. Mersenne, Traité des mouvemens, et de la cheute des corps pesans et de la proportion de leurs différentes vitesses (Paris, 1633), 2
10. A. Koyre, "An experiment in measuremen," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 97 (1953), 222-237;
11. P. Dear, Mersenne and the Learning of the Schools, (Ithaca, 1988), 136-137;
12. Id., Discipline &f Experiencee the Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1995), 129-132.
13. For an analysis of the Traité des mouvemens, cf. also P. Boutroux, "Le Père Mersenne et Galilée," Scientia 31 (1922), 279-290 and 347-360, esp. 347-350.
14. Cf. Mersenne, Traité, 21-23.
15. M. Mersenne, Novarum observationum physico-mathematicarum . tomus III, (Paris, 1647) 133
16. Dear, Discipline, 132.
17. M. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle contenant la théorie et la pratique de la musique, 2 vols., (Paris, 1636-1637)
18. facsimile reprint of author's annotated copy (Paris, 1963), 1: 126.
19. R. Lenoble, Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme (Paris, 1643), XXI-XXV.
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23. Cf. P. Damerow, G. Freudentha, P. Mc Laughlin and J. Renn , Exploring the Limits of Preclassical Mechanics (New York, 1992), 229-230.
24. M. Mersenne, Les Michaniques de Galilee, mathematicien et ingénieur du Duc de Florence avecplusieurs additions rares et nouvelles (Paris, 1634), 77-78;
25. critical edition by B. Rochot (Paris, 1966), 71.
26. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, 1: 89
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28. id., "Spazi del moto in divina proporzione," Giornale critico della filosofia itallana, LXIII (1984), 334-376, esp. 343-344.
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35. Dear, Mersenne, 208-209.
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37. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, 1: 205.
38. For an analysis of Mersenne's reasoning, cf. the critical edition of the Nouvelles pensees, 2: 250.
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70. Galilei, Dialogue, 228-229
71. Galluzzi, "Gassendi," 112.
72. A. Koyré, "Pierre Gassendi: le savant," in Centre international de synthèse, Pierre Gassendi, 1592-1655. Sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1955), 59-70
73. P.A. Pav, "Gassendi's Statement of the Principle of Inertia," Isis, 57 (1966), 24-34;
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75. W. Detel, "War Gassendi ein Empirist?," Studia Leibnitiana, 6 (1974), 178-221;
76. B. Brundell, Pierre Gassendii From Aristotellaniim to a New Natural Philosophy (Dordrecht, 1987), 79.
77. O.R. Bloch, La philosophie de Gassendi. Nominalisme, matérialisme et metaphysique (The Hague, 1971), 226-227
78. M. Messeri, Causa e spiegazionee Lafisica di Pierre Gassendi (Milan, 1985), 86-93.
79. S. Moscovici, L'experiencc du mouvementt Jean-Baptiste Baliani disciple et critique de Galilée (Paris, 1967);
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81. G. B. Baliani, De motu naturali gravium solidorum et liquidorum (Genua, 1646), 71
82. Galluzzi, "Gassendi," 114-115.
83. C. Costantini, Baliani e i Gesuiti. Annotazioni in margine alla cornspondenza del Baliani con Gio. Luigi Confalonieri e Orazio Grassi (Florence, 1969).
84. S. Drake, "Impetus Theory and Quanta of Speed before and after Galileo," Physis, 16 (1974), 47-65, esp. 50-51;
85. Dear, Mersenne, 216;
86. Galluzzi "Gassendi," 115.
87. The Tractatus physicus (Lyon, 1646)
88. Drake, "Impetus," esp. 47-65;
89. id., "Free Fall from Albert of Saxony to Honoré Fabri, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 5 (1975), 347-366;
90. D.C. Lukens, An Aristotellan Response to Galileo: Honore Fabri, S.J. (1608-1688) on the Causal Analysis of Motion, (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1979);
91. Dear, Discipline, 138-144.
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93. A. Boehm, "L'aristotelisme d'Honoré Fabri (1607-1688)," Revue des sciences religieusess 39 (1965), 305-360;
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95. E. Fellmann, Honore Fabri (1607-1688) als Mathematiker eine Reprise, in P.M. Harman, A. Shapiro (eds.), The Investigation of Difficult Things: Essays on Newton and the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour ofD.T. Whiteside (Cambridge, 1992), 97-112. Cf. above, pp. 295-96.
96. H. Fabri, Metaphysica demonstrattva, sive scientia rationum universalium (Lyon, 1648), 371.
97. 1,1 Le Teimeur to Mersenne, 13 April, 1647, CM., 15: 173-199
98. P. Galluzzi, Momento. Studi galileiani (Rome, 1979), 360.
99. J. A. Le Tenneur, De motu naturaliter accelerate tractatus physico-mathematicus (Paris, 1649), 110
100. Torricelli to Mersenne, 27 January, 1645: CM., 13: 338.
101. Mersenne to Christiaan Huygens, 13 October, 1646, CM., 14: 539
102. A. Beaulieu, "Christiaan Huygen et Mer-senne l'inspirateur," in Huygens et la France (Paris, 1981), 25-31.
103. Galluzzi, "Gassendi," 109-110;
104. Dear, Mersenne, 212-214.
105. C. Huygens to Mersenne, 28 October, 1646, CM., 14: 570-572.
106. Mersenne, Novarum observattonum, 131-132.
107. R. S. Westfall, Force in Newton's Physics (London, 1971), 47.
108. R. H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Sponoza (Berkeley, 1979), 129.