Article ID: CBB001252889

Galileo and Tennis: Reconciling the New Physics with Commonsense (2013)

unapi

This paper discusses a passage from the Second Day of Galileo's Dialogue in which explicit reference is made to the game of tennis and, more specifically, to spinning balls. This often overlooked passage forms part and parcel of the tightly-knit argumentative structure of the work, and provides key arguments against Aristotelian physics. Furthermore, Galileo's choice of terms shows how careful he was in his use of analogies as effective tools to reconcile the new physics that he was struggling to introduce, with common sense. Finally, and most interestingly, by comparing this passage with a similar one from Galileo's unpublished writings, this paper shows the extent to which Galileo was interested in the physics of spinning balls and how he planned to include a discussion of it in a work that he began shortly after the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, but never managed to finish.

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Article Angelini, Annarita (2013) Praecisio and Conjecture: Cusanus' Ball Game and the “Learned Ignorance” of the World. Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza (p. 5). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Palmerino, Carla Rita
Galen Barry
Wallace, William A.
Tosi, Alessandro
Sylla, Edith Dudley
Schemmel, Matthias
Concepts
Motion (physical)
Physics
Mathematics
Tennis
Science and sports
Momentum; inertia (mechanics)
Time Periods
17th century
16th century
Renaissance
Early modern
19th century
15th century
Places
Italy
Europe
Germany
Pisa (Italy)
England
Switzerland
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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