Abstract
Although we are left with few monuments from the profound research of the Ancients into the laws of equilibrium, those few are worthy of eternal admiration. Two texts in particular stand out because they are undoubtedly the most admirable: the book which Aristotle devotes to questions of mechanics and the treatises written by Archimedes.
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References
T. N.: This work is now commonly attributed to either Theophrastus (3727–287? B.C.) or Strato (?—271 B.C.).
T. N.: This is Duhem’s translation from the original Greek, using the French edition of Aristotle’s On the Heavens, Edition Didot, Vol. II, p. 414. Cf. the English edition: Aristotle, On the Heavens, Loeb Edition, III, ii, 301b, pp. 278–9.
T. N.: This is Duhem’s translation from the original Greek, using the French edition of Aristotle’s Mechanical Problems, Edition Didot, Vol. IV, p. 58. Cf. the English edition: Aristotle, Mechanical Problems, Loeb Editon, 3, 850b, pp. 352–3.
T. N.: This is Duhem’s translation from the original Greek, using the French edition of Aristotle’s Mechanical Problems, Edition Didot Vol. IV, p. 55. Cf. the English edition: Aristotle, Mechanical Problems, Loeb Edition, 1, 848a, pp. 334–5.
Aristotle, Mechanical Problems, Edition Didot, Vol. IV, 1, 848a, p. 55.
Oeuvres d’Archimèdes, translated literally with a commentary by F. Peyrard, Paris 1807, p. 275.
Oeuvres d’Archimèdes, translated literally with a commentary by F. Peyrard, Paris 1807, pp. 280–2.
T. N.: The words “commensurable” and “incommensurable” denoted to the Greeks what we call today rational and irrational numbers.
Descartes, Letter to Mersenne dated November 15, 1638 (Oeuvres de Descartes, published by Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, Vol. II, p. 433).
T. N.: Latin for “how things are” but not “why they are that way.”
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Duhem, P. (1991). Aristotle and Archimedes (384–322 and 287–212 B.C). In: The Origins of Statics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 123. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3730-0_1
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