XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: petertrei@gmail.com   
      
   On 10/15/2025 4:30 PM, William Hyde wrote:   
   > Mark Jackson wrote:   
   >> On 10/15/2025 10:34 AM, 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.   
   >>>   
   >>> 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.   
   >>   
   >> Probably not.  Did they know the muzzle velocity of the devices to   
   >> which a given distance/angle table applies?  Then, assuming no   
   >> meaningful impact of air resistance:   
   >>   
   >> time-to-target = distance divided by (muzzle velocity)*cos(angle).   
   >>   
   > I seem to recall from Aubrey that one of Elizabeth's scholars applied   
   > mathematics to gunnery, possibly Dr Dee before he became an occultist.   
   >   
   > The Parliamentary officer Nathaniel Nye directed cannon in the English   
   > civil war and published a book on the mathematics of it in 1647, in   
   > which he cited a much earlier Italian mathematician, Tartaliga, who   
   > wrote on the subject in 1537.   
   >   
   > William Hyde   
      
   "Time on target" involves firing several projectiles, setting the   
   propellent charges, firing times, and elevation of the cannon(s)   
   to cause the shells to arrive at the target simultaneously.   
      
   I've seen this done using cannon that have liquid propellants   
   and computer control. I can't imagine it being done with fixed   
   charges, or without computers, save as the result of a careful   
   iterative set of firings to zero on on the charges, timing and   
   elevations needed.   
      
   Please remember that Aubrey makes sh*t up.   
      
   pt   
      
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