XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:34:04 -0400 (EDT), kludge@panix.com (Scott   
   Dorsey) wrote:   
      
   >Scott Dorsey  wrote:   
   >>Paul S Person   wrote:   
   >>>IIRC, at some point Galileo was in charge of the Pisan artillery.   
   >>>   
   >>>I wonder if he was trying to find out why their "time on target"   
   >>>computations [1] never worked with Aristotle's view of how things   
   >>>fell.   
   >>   
   >>_Two New Sciences_ has a discussion of this and is well worth   
   >>reading.  Note that Galileo is thinking throughout of bodies    
   >>attracted to the earth and never makes that great jump of Newton's.   
      
   How ... Aristotelian of him.   
      
   Did he rule out other "worlds" (solar systems if not universes [1])   
   because their matter would to attracted to the center of our Earth?   
      
   [1] The last section of the translation of Newton's /Principia/ in the   
   collection called /The Great Books of the Western World/ is called   
   "The System of the World". It is about the solar system. IIRC, it is   
   here that he suggests solar gravity is the force posited by Kepler   
   that keeps the planets moving in elliptical orbits. So in Newton's   
   day, "the world" was at least the solar system; in Aristotle's it   
   probably included the fixed sphere of stars as well -- that is, was   
   what we call the Universe. It would be interesting to know if Bruno,   
   when he contended that other worlds existed, was talking about Mars or   
   about other universes.   
      
   >I take that back.  I thought there was a discussion of time of flight   
   >but looking it up I find there is not.... it would be difficult to do    
   >without the calculus I suspect.   
      
   I appear to be projecting much more modern concepts of artillery onto   
   the distant past.   
      
   Ancient geometry did include conic sections, although whether they   
   were related to the path of missiles used in indirect fire [1] I do   
   not know.    
      
   [1] Direct fire is when you shoot straight at the target. Indirect   
   fire is when you shoot up into the air and the missile falls down from   
   on high. The ancients, of course, had several forms of missiles   
   capable of indirect fire: arrows, perhaps some types of spears,   
   pebbles (slingers), and probably others as well. The large rocks   
   propelled by various seige engines were generally used in indirect   
   fire, it being hard to get them to fly level for any great distance.   
   --    
   "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,   
   Who evil spoke of everyone but God,   
   Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)