eprintid: 2028
rev_number: 8
eprint_status: archive
userid: 20
dir: disk0/00/00/20/28
datestamp: 2013-12-03 15:32:21
lastmod: 2013-12-03 15:32:21
status_changed: 2013-12-03 15:32:21
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Gattei, Stefano
creators_id: stefano.gattei@imtlucca.it
title: Galileo and Tennis: Reconciling the New Physics with Commonsense
ispublished: pub
subjects: B1
divisions: EIC
full_text_status: none
abstract: This paper discusses a passage from the Second Day of Galileo’s Dialogue in which explicit reference is made to the game of tennis and, more specifically, to spinning balls. This often overlooked passage forms part and parcel of the tightly-knit argumentative structure of the work, and provides key arguments against Aristotelian physics. Furthermore, Galileo’s choice of terms shows how careful he was in his use of analogies as effective tools to reconcile the new physics that he was struggling to introduce, with common sense. Finally,
and most interestingly, by comparing this passage with a similar one from Galileo’s unpublished writings, this paper shows the extent to which Galileo was interested in the physics of spinning balls and how he planned to include a discussion of it in a work that he began shortly after the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, but never managed to finish.
date: 2013
date_type: published
publication: Nuncius
volume: 28
number: 1
publisher: Brill Academic Publishers 
pagerange: 66-84
id_number: 10.1163/18253911-02801005 
refereed: TRUE
issn: 0394-7394
official_url: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18253911-02801005
citation:   Gattei, Stefano  Galileo and Tennis: Reconciling the New Physics with Commonsense.  Nuncius, 28 (1).  pp. 66-84.  ISSN 0394-7394      (2013)