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Re: [Phys-l] History of MASS



"Newton was not kidding when he said he stood on the shoulders
of giants."

I thought it was a science cultural myth that Newton was worse than kidding, the giant a reference to short Hooke.

Here's some evidence: [select # 2 16 => 19 cents.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants#References_during_the_sixteenth_to_nineteenth_centuries

It's rather revealing that the Royal society's only portrait of Hooke was lost in the move supervised by Newton.

bc



John Denker wrote:

Aaarrgh, I must retract much of what I said about Galileo in my
previous note. I'm not sure.

I stand by what I said about not being a historian, and having a
terrible memory :-).

Galileo "must" have grasped some sort of mass/weight distinction,
as evidenced by his experiments rolling stuff on inclined planes.
The non-verticality "dilutes" the force of gravity (weight)
without diluting the inertia (mass).

A related point: Newton said he quantified the mass/weight
relationship using pendulums ... following Galileo who very
thoroughly understood pendulums, and exploited them for many
purposes.

Newton was not kidding when he said he stood on the shoulders
of giants.

On the other hand, I still don't recall Galileo explicitly
drawing the distinction between mass and weight. The concept
or something like it "must" have been there, but I don't recall
the _terminology_ being there.

I put "must" in scare quotes, because I don't really know.
History is tricky. Sometimes historical figures, even when

cut