Institute and Museum of History of Science, Florence, ITALY

 

HALL XVI MECHANICS INSTRUMENTS The Lorraine Collection

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Apparatus to showing the parabolic trajectory of a liquids
Prompted by the stimulus of Galileo's decisive contribution, the science of mechanics underwent constant progress throughout the seventeenth century, with the work of Descartes (1596-1650), Huygens (1629-95), Wallis (1616-1703) and Wren (1632-1723). With the publication of Newton's Principia (1687), the foundations of classical mechanics now seemed definitively established. Throughout the eighteenth century Newton's approach became increasingly predominant, along with his refined, innovative techniques of analysis (calculus). Scientific popularizers such as s'Gravesande (1688-1742) and Abbot Nollet(1700-70) published, during the first half of the eighteenth century, treaties in which the Newtonian principles were demonstrated through experiments conducted with the aid of the new apparatus, the success of which was immediate and wide-spread. The very beautiful instruments exhibited in this room were constructed in the workshop of the Museum of Physics starting in 1775, under the direction of Felice Fontana (1730-1805). The craftsmen who made them drew inspiration from the engravings in Nollet's treatise. Among the exhibits are machines designed to demonstrate the effects of centrifugal force, the "mechanical paradox", of the double cone and a set of levers.

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For more information please contact:
Mara Miniati: mara@galileo.imss.firenze.it