| Research Abstract |
This research focuses on the birth of mechanics, which is the core of the Seventeenth-Century
Scientific Revolution, and examines the developments of physical basic concepts - 'gravitas, ' 'massa, ' 'velocitas, ' 'acceleratio, ' 'vis, ' 'momentum' - in the works of Galilei, Cavarieri, Torricelli, Descartes, and Newton. Galilei, the founder of mathematical theory of motion, had the great problem with the concpt of velocity and its mathematical expression. To treat the instantaneous velocity in considering the accelerated motion, Galilei used the medieval concept 'gradus velocitatis' and tried to express it mathematically by 'indivisibilis.' However its theoretical deficiency made his demonstation of the law of falling body incomplete. The problem which Galilei encountered is how to understand the infinitesimal quantity and how to express it mathematically. Galilei's law of falling motion was the basis as that of accelerated motion by constant force, when Huygens and Newton considered it generally. However Galilei's demonstration of it was abandoned by introducing the infinitesimal quantity. Newton's greatest achievement is the conceptual distinction between weight and mass and the formulation of laws of motion, but it took about half a century for formalizing his second law of motion analytically and making it the basis of mechanical system. Further study is necessory for the developments of the eighteenth-century analytical mechanics.
In this research, the conchordance of about 2000 wrods regarding Galilei's principal works and other scientists' mechanical works has been made, and will be uploaded on the web site. In future, the whole concordance of about 20000 words also will appear on the web site.
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