Galileo and the Equations of Motion

Dino Boccaletti was Professor of Celestial Mechanics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” from 1987 until his retirement, and was previously Professor in the Institution of Mathematics at the university. In addition to his teaching and supervisory responsibilities, Prof. Boccaletti conducted research in the fields of Physics of Elementary Particles, Theoretical Astrophysics, Theory of Gravitational Waves, Stellar Dynamics, Celestial Mechanics, and Mathematical Physics. He has published a number of papers in leading journals, including Nature, Physical Review D, and Astronomy & Astrophysics, and has acted as reviewer for various scientific journals. He is co-author, with G. Pucacco, of the two-volume Springer book Theory of Orbits, which is used for advanced courses in Celestial Mechanics and Stellar Dynamics at universities across the world.

“The purpose of this book is to explain how Galileo gradually transformed from a believer in the Archimedian approach to eventually arrive at the new insights of these laws of motion. Boccaletti carefully analyses the available texts to understand this transformation. This is a study mainly addressing the professional historian.” (Adhemar Bultheel, EMS European Mathematical Society, eruo-math-soc.eu, November, 2015)

• Part I The Theories on the Motion of Bodies in the Classical Antiquity.- Kinematics among the Greeks.- Dynamics in the Opinion of Aristotle and his Continuators.- The Theories of Motion in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.- The first substantial Criticisms to Aristotelian Mechanics – Philoponus and Avempace.- The medieval Kinematics.- Part II A brief Chronology of Galileo’s Life.- The young Galileo and the De Motu.- The Inertia Principle.-The Law of Fall and the Motion of Projectiles.- The Principle of Relativity.