XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: wthyde1953@gmail.com   
      
   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.   
   >   
   > Please remember that Aubrey makes sh*t up.   
      
   Well, he didn't have much of a BS detector, and never met a good story   
   he didn't spread, but I wasn't aware that he consciously lied.   
      
   In any event, the reference was vague.  Despite his membership in the   
   Royal Society, I don't think Aubrey was much of a hand at mathematics.   
      
      
   William Hyde   
      
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