De motu naturali gravium solidorum et liquidorum

Giovanni Battista Baliani (1582–1666) was an Italian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

Career

He was born in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

. He was governor of

Savona Savona (; lij, Sann-a ) is a seaport and ''comune'' in the west part of the northern Italy, Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea. Savona used to be one of the chie ...

in 1647–1649 and captain of the

Republic of Genoa The Republic of Genoa ( lij, Repúbrica de Zêna ; it, Repubblica di Genova; la, Res Publica Ianuensis) was a medieval and early modern maritime republic from the 11th century to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast. During the Lat ...

's archers. For some 25 years, he held a correspondence with

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

about the time's most innovative scientific theories and experiments.. However, Applebaum also calls Baliani's correspondence with Galileo "intermittent". For another discussion of the timing and content of letters dating from 1615 to 1639, see .

Work

At Savona, from the Priamar Fortress, he repeated Galileo's experiment of the Tower of Pisa, obtaining more precise measurements which allowed him to underline the effect of air attrition. He also conducted an experiment to show the heat generated by a pot full of water, which he had boiled after rotating it at high speed. His main work is entitled ''De motu naturali gravium, fluidorum et solidorum'' ("About the motion of bodies, fluids and solids"), published in 1638; in it, he was the first to enunciate the law of acceleration of a body and to distinguish between

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

and weight. He also studied tides, supporting Galileo's theory that they were generated by the Earth's motion around the Sun. His arguments were published by

Giovanni Battista Riccioli Giovanni Battista Riccioli, SJ (17 April 1598 – 25 June 1671) was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. He is known, among other things, for his experiments with pendulums and with falling bodies, for his discussion ...

in his ''Almagestum novum'' (1651) and later resumed by

John Wallis John Wallis (; la, Wallisius; ) was an English clergyman and mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal ...

and

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

Death

Baliani died at Genoa in 1666.

Notes

Sources

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baliani, Giovanni Battista 1582 births 1666 deaths 17th-century Genoese people 17th-century Italian mathematicians 17th-century Italian writers 17th-century Italian physicists 17th-century Italian astronomers