Main entry:

Bertoloni Meli, Domenico.

Title & Author:

Thinking with objects : the transformation of mechanics in the seventeenth century / Domenico Bertoloni Meli.

Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Description:

xii, 389 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-377) and index.
1. Machines in the field, in the book, and in the study -- 2. Floating bodies and a mathematical science of motion -- 3. The formulation of new mathematical sciences -- 4. Novel reflections and quantitative experiments -- 5. The motion and collision of particles -- Intermezzo : generational and institutional changes -- 6. The equilibrium and motion of liquids -- 7. Projected, oscillating, and orbiting bodies -- 8. Colliding bodies, springs, and beams -- 9. A new world-system -- 10. Causes, conservation, and the new mathematics -- Conclusion : mapping the transformations of mechanics.

Summary:

"Thinking with Objects offers a fresh view of the transformation that took place in mechanics during the 17th century. By giving center stage to objects--levers, inclined planes, beams, pendulums, springs, and falling and projected bodies--Domenico Bertoloni Meli provides a unique and comprehensive portrayal of mechanics as practitioners understood it at the time. Bertoloni Meli reexamines such major texts as Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, and Newton's Principia, and in them finds a reliance on objects that has escaped proper understanding. From Pappus of Alexandria to Guidobaldo dal Monte, Bertoloni Meli sees significant developments in the history of mechanical experimentation, all of them crucial for understanding Galileo. Bertoloni Meli uses similarities and tensions between dal Monte and Galileo as a springboard for exploring the revolutionary nature of seventeenth-century mechanics. Examining objects helps us appreciate the shift from the study to the practice of mechanics and challenges artificial dichotomies among practical and conceptual pursuits, mathematics, and experiment."--Publisher's website.

Resources:
Publisher description
Contributor biographical information
Table of contents
Table of contents
ebrary
Table of contents only
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
cover art
table of contents

ISBN:

0801884268 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
9780801884269 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
0801884276 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780801884276 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Mechanics History 17th century.
Motion History 17th century.
Physics History 17th century.
Mécanique Histoire 17e siècle.
Mouvement Histoire 17e siècle.
Physique Histoire 17e siècle.
33.11 classical mechanics.
Meccanica Europa Sec. 17.
Mechanics.
Motion.
Physics.
Mechanik
Technik
Mechanica.
Beweging (activiteit)

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 249999
Call No.: BIB 179530
Status: Available