Thanks for your blog! When Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants, Galileo must have been one of the giants he meant.
I was initially confused by the word "amplitude" which is defined as "the extent of a vibratory movement (as of a pendulum) measured from the mean position to an extreme". That made me think the way to get the largest amplitude is to fire a projectile straight up. As used here the word means the distance travelled by the projectile, or the width of the trajectory, but not the height or altitude of the trajectory. Does Galileo himself use the word "amplitude" ?
Hi thinking-turtle, I just checked. In Stillman Drake's translation, he clearly refers to the altitude and the amplitude of a semiparabola. So, in this situation, amplitude is the correct term for describing the distance along the ground of the trajectory.
Thanks for your blog! When Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants, Galileo must have been one of the giants he meant.
I was initially confused by the word "amplitude" which is defined as "the extent of a vibratory movement (as of a pendulum) measured from the mean position to an extreme". That made me think the way to get the largest amplitude is to fire a projectile straight up. As used here the word means the distance travelled by the projectile, or the width of the trajectory, but not the height or altitude of the trajectory. Does Galileo himself use the word "amplitude" ?
Hi thinking-turtle, I just checked. In Stillman Drake's translation, he clearly refers to the altitude and the amplitude of a semiparabola. So, in this situation, amplitude is the correct term for describing the distance along the ground of the trajectory.
Thanks for checking!