Thinking with Objects

Domenico Bertoloni Meli is a professor of history and philosophy of science at Indiana University.

Clearly the result of meticulous research and extensive study, I suspect this work will stand the test of time. PhiloBiblos 2007 The revival of extensive discourses makes this a unique, invaluable resource for any study of the history of science. Choice 2007 Fascinating reading for anyone interested in the history of science... incredibly thorough. -- David Nuttall Physics Education 2007 An important contribution... and his book should find a welcome place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of the Scientific Revolution. -- William R. Shea American Historical Review 2007 A very interesting book... I have no doubt that it is destined to find a pivotal place in the study of the history of science. -- Michael Box Australian Physics 2008 The most important contribution to the history of mechanics of the last decade, likely to become a standard reference and without any doubt a must for every historian of physics. -- Jurgen Renn Renaissance Quarterly 2008 A superb, if difficult book, that belongs as basic to the curriculum of early modern history of science. -- Margaret Jacob History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 2007 Meli's stress on the importance of engagements with materiality in the development of seventeenth-century mechanics thus achieves a spectacular vindication in demonstrating the full meaning of Newton's pretensions to be contributing not just to 'mathematics' in the Principia, but to natural philosophy itself. -- Peter Dear British Journal for the History of Science 2008 [Meli's] approach is new and convincing... a groundbreaking change of focus. -- Sophie Roux Metascience 2009 Full of pertinent detail in the text itself, Thinking with Objects cleverly uses the captions of figures to provide more extended samples of seventeenth-century arguments, thus demonstrating in practice how helpful it is to think with visual or geometric representations. -- Edith Dudley Sylla Isis 2008 Thinking with Objects is a significant book. Its success lies in reformulating our ideas of the methods and practices of early modern sciences... No serious future study of early modern physics and its transformations will be able to ignore the analyses and conclusions of this work. -- Craig Martin Huntington Library Quarterly 2009

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Beyond Inertia: From Laws to Objects2. Motion and Mechanics3. The Role of Mathematics4. Experience and Experiment5. Practitioners, Sites, and Forms of Communication6. Structure and Organization of the Present Work1. Machines in the Field, in the Book, and in the Study1.1. Between Classical Theory and Engineering Practice1.2. Machines, Equilibrium, and Motion1.3. The Balance of dal Monte and the Problem of Rigor1.4. Pulleys and the Contingency of Matter1.5. Rival Traditions on the Inclined Plane2. Floating Bodies and a Mathematical Science of Motion2.1. Some Features of Archimedes' Floating Bodies2.2. Reading Floating Bodies2.3. Benedetti against the Philosophers2.4. Galileo's Early Speculations2.5. Mazzoni, Stevin, and Galileo3. The Formulation of New Mathematical Sciences3.1. The Broadening of the Mechanical Tradition3.2. Galileo at Padua and the Science of Motion3.3. From Buoyancy to the Science of Waters3.4. Motion between Heaven and Earth3.5. The Science of the Resistance of Materials3.6. The Science of Motion4. Novel Reflections and Quantitative Experiments4.1. Different Readings of Galileo4.2. Mersenne's Harmonie and the Dialogo4.3. Rethinking Galileo's Axiomatic Structure4.4. Continuity and the Law of Fall4.5. Trials with Projectiles, Pierced Cisterns, and Beams4.6. The Experiments and Tables of Riccioli5. The Motion and Collision of Particles5.1. The Rise of the Mechanical Philosophy5.2. Mechanics and the Mechanical Philosophy5.3. Beeckman, Galileo, and Descartes5.4. Motion and Its Laws5.5. From the Balance to Impact: Beeckman, Marci, and Descartes5.6. The Workings of the Cartesian UniverseIntermezzo: Generational and Institutional Changes6. The Equilibrium and Motion of Liquids6.1. A Characterization of a Research Tradition6.2. Studies around the Time of the Cimento Academy6.3. Pressure and Equilibrium in Pascal and Boyle6.4. Studying the Motion of Waters North of the Alps6.5. Guglielmini and the Bologna Scene6.6. Experiments Combining Pressure and Speed7. Projected, Oscillating, and Orbiting Bodies7.1. The Tools of Investigation7.2. The Analyses of Orbital Motion by Fabri and Borelli7.3. Falling Bodies on a Moving Earth7.4. Projectiles and Air Resistance7.5. Huygens's Pendulum7.6. English Approaches to Orbital Motion8. Colliding Bodies, Springs, and Beams8.1. The Emergence of Elasticity8.2. Boyle and Elasticity8.3. The Transformation of the Impact Rules8.4. Springs between Technology and Cosmology8.5. Bending and Breaking Beams9. A New World-System9.1. Teamwork and Anti-Cartesianism9.2. Halley, Wren, Hooke, and Newton9.3. The Principia's Structure and Conceptual Framework9.4. The Role of Experiments9.5. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy9.6. A New World-System: Newton and Flamsteed10. Causes, Conservation, and the New Mathematics10.1. Mechanics at the Turn of the Century10.2. The New Analysis10.3. Conservation10.4. Early Responses to Newton's Principia10.5. The New Analysis and Newton's PrincipiaConclusion: Mapping the Transformations of MechanicsNotesReferencesIndex