Renaissance of Mechanics

Walter Roy Laird received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1983, where his graduate professors included Stillman Drake. He taught at Rice University as a Mellon post-doctoral fellow and at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, before joining the Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, where he taught medieval history and the history of science for over thirty years and where he is now Professor emeritus. Since 2016 he has been a Member of the Commissione scientifica dell’Edizione Nazionale dell’opera matematica di Francesco Maurolico. His publications on the history of mechanics include two books, one authored (The Unfinished Mechanics of Giuseppe Moletti [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000]) and one co-edited (Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution, edited with Sophie Roux [Dordrecht: Springer, 2008]), and a number of articles and chapters.

• Part I: Ancient mechanics.- Chapter 1. Devices and desires.- Chapter 2. Archimedes mechanicus.- Chapter 3. The Alexandria quartet.- Part II: Mechanics in the middle ages.- Chapter 4. The medieval science of weights.- Part III: The renaissance of mechanics.- Chapter 5. The recovery of ancient mechanics.- Chapter 6. Niccolò Tartaglia and the science of weights.- Chapter 7. Francesco maurolico and equal moments.- Chapter 8. Guidobaldo Dal Monte and Hero’s machines.- Chapter 9. Galileo and the lost principles of hero.- Conclusion.