Online sources

Jürgen Renn; Peter Damerow

10 Online sources

Chapter structure

TY  - CHAP
T1  - Online sources
T2  - The Equilibrium Controversy: Guidobaldo del Monte’s Critical Notes on the Mechanics of Jordanus and Benedetti and their Historical and Conceptual Backgrounds
A1  - Jürgen Renn
A1  - Peter Damerow
AB  - This study, the second volume of the series "Sources" of the "Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge," reviews a historical discussion about the question of whether a balance in equilibrium, after having been deflected, returns to its original position. This question captured the attention of philosophers and scientists for almost two millennia, from Greek antiquity to the sixteenth century when the "equilibrium controversy" became a central question among scholars. <br/> Two new sources related to this controversy are presented: an annotated copy of Jordanus de Nemore's "Liber de ponderibus" edited by Petrus Apianus in 1533 and an annotated copy of Giovanni Battista Benedetti's "Diversarum speculationum mathematicarum et physicarum liber" from 1585. Both works contain handwritten marginal notes by Guidobaldo del Monte, author of the most influential early modern text on mechanics.<br/>A detailed analysis of these sources, their prehistory, and their contexts shows that the "equilibrium controversy" only scratched the surface of a much deeper conceptual crisis of early modern mechanics that was triggered by the introduction of the medieval concept of "positional heaviness" into early modern discussions. This crisis helped to establish fundamental insights on which Galileo eventually built his theory of mechanics as well as his theory of motion.
PB  - Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften
PY  - 2012
SN  - 978-3-945561-26-3
LK  - https://edition-open-sources.org/sources/2/10/index.html
C1  - by-nc-sa
DO  - 10.34663/9783945561263-10
LA  - english
ER  -

The ECHO project (European Cultural Heritage Online) of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science is continuously extending its collection of sources. In collaboration with other institutions, these are made freely accessible as text files in XML format and/or as high quality images via the website: echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de. The sources mentioned in the present publication and listed below are currently accessible in this way. For their cooperation and support, we are particularly grateful to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Biblioteca Oliveriani in Pesaro, the Bibliothek Werner Oechslin in Einsiedeln, the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, the Museo Galileo in Florence, the Museo Leonardiano and Biblioteca Leonardiana in Vinci, the Niedersächsische Staats- und Landesbibliothek in Göttingen, and the University of Oklahoma Libraries.