De Motu [Galileo - Part 2]

About this episode

At twenty-five, Galileo was back in Pisa, this time as its Professor of Mathematics. The salary was roughly that of a good stonemason, and the university was firmly in the hands of the Aristotelians, some of whom had once been his teachers. In this episode we look at Aristotle’s ideas on motion, and why even his most devoted followers couldn’t agree on what they meant. Galileo had little patience for any of it. Instead he turned to Archimedes and to a new generation of Italian mathematicians who were asking the same questions. Encouraged by his friends, he made his first real attempt at a theory of his own. Not very originally, he called it De Motu. Whether it actually worked was another matter. Support the show Support the show and get episodes early: https://www.patreon.com/TheCompleteHistoryofScience Website: https://thecompletehistoryofscience.com/ Contact: thecompletehistoryofscience@gmail.com BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/gethinrichards.bsky.social Music Credit: Folk Round Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License