XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Paul S Person   wrote:   
   >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.=20   
      
   I don't know, but Galileo does talk about how the projectile follows a   
   parabola and why.  He does mention indrect fire although I don't think   
   it is very useful unless you have good spotting, which would have been   
   a problem at the time.   
      
   But time of arrival is more difficult since the projectile velocity   
   isn't constant at every point along that parabola.  Vectors and the   
   calculus make these simple problems but they would be difficult to   
   solve without them.   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)