XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Wed, 15 Oct 2025 22:00:02 -0400, Cryptoengineer   
    wrote:   
      
   >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.   
      
   While researching the history of "time on target", I found a Wikipedia   
   article asserting that it was developed by the Brits in North Africa   
   in 1941 or 1942.    
      
   Fixed charges I don't know about, but computers (if you mean modern   
   digital computers) they did not have.   
      
   OTOH, a book I purchased, /The Effects of Nuclear Weapons/, has a sort   
   of circular slide rule that /could/ be considered a computer of such   
   effects. So some such "computer" might have been involved.   
      
   And then developed further by the Americans as the war progressed.   
      
   >Please remember that Aubrey makes sh*t up.   
      
   So do lots of people. We live in an age when "skepticism" is not   
   restricted to the paranormal, or religion, but extends to everything.   
   --    
   "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)