Matteo Valleriani

Galileo Engineer - Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science Matteo Valleriani 2010 edition

Galileo's scientific achievements were largely based on and influenced by his activities as an engineer and the practical knowledge he shared from this context, first in Florence, then in Padua and finally again in Florence. After an extensive analysis of the recently grounded historical category of "engineer-scientist," such a category is applied to Galileo, too. The result is that he belonged to the tradition of those theory-oriented practical mathematicians, who, challenged by the practical knowledge, approached it by making use of mathematical means and, in doing so, generated new scientific knowledge. After an analysis of Galileo's early education, the work establishes and analyses Galileo's main fields of practical activities; his contributions to the art of building and evaluating machines, mathematical and optical instruments; his activities related to the work of the artillerists and of the military architects; his connections to the Venetian Arsenal and his involvement in the fields of pneumatics and thermoscopics. The work is based on primary sources and, among these, Galileo's correspondence plays a major role. All of the letters that are particularly relevant for the understanding of Galileo as an Engineer have been translated in English for the first time and appended to this work.