A Discourse Concerning Bodies in Water

Galileo Galilei (Thomas Salusbury, trans.) · 1661

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Description

Galileo Galilei's Discourse on floating bodies, written in 1612, appears here in Thomas Salusbury's 1661 English translation, A Discourse Concerning Bodies in Water. Galileo wrote the work in a dispute at the Medici court over why ice floats. His opponents held Aristotelian views on shape and density.

Galileo argued that floating rests on the weight of the body compared with the water it pushes aside, not on flat shape. Experiments with wax and water backed his account of hydrostatics. Salusbury's translation, printed in London, first brought Galileo's physics to English readers in their own tongue. The short work shows Galileo's style: court debate turned into careful test and proof.

Catalog record

CREATORGalileo Galilei (Thomas Salusbury, trans.)
YEAR1661
COLLECTIONBOOKS
FORMATTXT
FILE SIZE217 KB
VERSION1.0
LICENSEPublic Domain
RIGHTSPUBLIC DOMAIN
SOURCEProject Gutenberg

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37729

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