•  46
    This book presents a historical and scientific analysis as historical epistemology of the science of weights and mechanics in the sixteenth century, particularly as developed by Tartaglia in his Quesiti et inventioni diverse, Book VII and Book VIII (1546; 1554). In the early 16th century mechanics was concerned mainly with what is now called statics and was referred to as the Scientia de ponderibus, generally pursued by two very different approaches. The first was usually referred to as Aristote…Read more
  •  38
    Galileo in Padua: architecture, fortifications, mathematics and “practical” science
    with Paolo Bussotti
    Lettera Matematica Pristem International 2 (4): 209-222. 2015.
    During his stay in Padua ca. 1592–1610, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was a lecturer of mathematics at the University of Padua and a tutor to private students of military architecture and fortifications. He carried out these activities at the Academia degli Artisti. At the same time, and in relation to his teaching activities, he began to study the equilibrium of bodies and strength of materials, later better structured and completed in his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences of 1638. This paper…Read more
  •  37
    Reading Science, Technology and Education: A Tradition Dating back to Science into the History and Historiography
    with Rémi Franckowiak and Abdelakader Anakkar
    Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 3 77-97. 2017.
    In this paper, we present an interdisciplinary discussion on the relations between Science–Technology Education and Culture both historical standpoint and nowadays. The idea that a human mind can produce an intellectual revolution within science and its approaches strongly crossed like a paradigm both in the history of sciences and disciplines–literatures : but what about its social impact and science mission, as well? To describe the impact of the disseminated knowledge is a consequent aim. A c…Read more
  •  37
    One may discuss the role played by mechanical science in the history of scientific ideas, particularly in physics, focusing on the significance of the relationship between physics and mathematics in describing mathematical laws in the context of a scientific theory. In the second Newtonian law of motion, space and time are crucial physical magnitudes in mechanics, but they are also mathematical magnitudes as involved in derivative operations. Above all, if we fail to acknowledge their mathematic…Read more
  •  37
    Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica "Jesuit" Edition: The Tenor of a Huge Work
    with Paolo Bussotti
    Rendiconti Accademia Dei Lincei Matematica E Applicazioni 25 (4): 413-444. 2014.
    This paper has the aim to provide a general view of the so called Jesuit Edition (hereafter JE) of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1739–1742). This edition was conceived to explain all Newton’s methods through an apparatus of notes and commentaries. Every Newton’s proposition is annotated. Because of this, the text – in four volumes – is one of the most important documents to understand Newton’s way of reasoning. This edition is well known, but systematic works on it are s…Read more
  •  36
    On Principles In Sadi Carnot’s Theory (1824). Epistemological reflections
    Almagest 2/1:128–179 2 (1): 128-179. 2010.
    In 1824 Sadi Carnot published Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu in which he founded almost the entire thermodynamics theory. Two years after his death, his friend Clapeyron introduced the famous diagram PV for analytically representing the famous Carnot’s cycle: one of the main and crucial ideas presented by Carnot in his booklet. Twenty-five years later, in order to achieve the modern version of the theory, Kelvin and Clausius had to reject the caloric hypothesis, which had influenced …Read more
  •  34
    This book offers insights relevant to modern history and epistemology of physics, mathematics and, indeed, to all the sciences and engineering disciplines emerging of 19th century. This research volume is the first of a set of three Springer books on Lazare Nicolas Marguérite Carnot’s (1753–1823) remarkable work: Essay on Machines in General (Essai sur les machines en général [1783] 1786). The other two forthcoming volumes are: Principes fondamentaux de l’équilibre et du mouvement (1803) an…Read more
  •  33
    A Newtonian tale details on notes and proofs in Geneva edition of Newton's Principia
    with Paolo Bussotti
    BSHM-Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics 1-19. 2016.
    Based on our research regarding the relationship between physics and mathematics in HPS, and recently on Geneva Edition of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1739–42) by Thomas Le Seur (1703–70) and François Jacquier (1711–88), in this paper we present some aspects of such Edition: a combination of editorial features and scientific aims. The proof of Proposition XLIII is presented and commented as a case study.
  •  31
    Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around the Renaissance: How Science and Technique Work?
    with Paolo Bussotti
    Acta Baltica Historiae Et Philosophiae Scientiarum 2 (2): 20-42. 2014.
    This paper is divided into two parts, this being the first one. The second is entitled ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around Renaissance: Machines, Machineries and Perpetual Motion’ and will be published in Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum in 2015. Based on our recent studies, we provide here a historical and epistemological feature on the role played by machines and machineries. Ours is an epistemological thesis based on a series of hist…Read more
  •  30
    Forums, I extensively analysed Tartaglia’s corpus: science of weights, geometry, arithmetic, mathematics and physics–trajectories of the projectiles, fortifications, included its intelligibility science in the military architecture. The latter is exposed in Book VI of the Quesiti et invention diverse (hereafter Quesiti). In Quesiti there is La Gionta del sesto libro—a kind of appendix to the Book VI containing drawings of the geometric shape of the Italian fortifications. It is based on Euclidea…Read more
  •  30
    The Algebra between History and Education (review)
    Metascience (2): 1-5. 2016.
    ‘‘What Is Algebra?-Why This Book?’’ This is the amazing prelude to Taming the Unknown by Victor J. Katz, emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of the District of Columbia and Karen Hunger Parshall, professor of history of mathematics at the University of Virginia. This is an excellent book; its accurate historical and pedagogical purpose offers an accessible read for historians and mathematicians. [continue...]
  •  28
    Interview: Joseph Agassi
    with Agassi Joseph, L. Condé Mauro, and Segre Michael
    Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 1. 2016.
    Joseph Agassi is an Israeli scholar born in Jerusalem on May 7, 1927. He has many books and articles published contributing to the fields of logic, scientific method, foundations of sciences, epistemology and, most importantly for this Journal, in the historiography of science. He studied with Karl Popper, who was definitely his biggest influence. He taught around the world in different universities. He currently lives in Herzliya, Israel. For his important contribution to the historiography of …Read more
  •  28
    Michael Riordan, Lillian Hoddeson and Adrienne W. Kolb, Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015), xiii+448 pp.
  •  26
    Thermodynamic foundations of physical chemistry: reversible processes and thermal equilibrium into the history
    with Abdelkader Anakkar, Emilio Marco Pellegrino, and Maxime Nagels
    Foundations of Chemistry 21 (3): 297-323. 2018.
    In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines:…Read more
  •  23
    Machines, Machineries and Perpetual Motion: Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around the Renaissance
    with Paolo Bussotti
    Acta Baltica Historiae Et Philosophiae s Cientiarum 3 (1): 69-87. 2015.
    This paper is the second part of our recent paper ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of machines around the renaissance: How s cience and t echnique Work’ (Pisano & Bussotti 2014a). In the first paper—which discussed some aspects of the relations between science and technology from Antiquity to the Renaissance—we highlighted the differences between the Aristotelian/Euclidean tradition and the Archimedean tradition. We also pointed out …Read more
  •  22
    Historical Foundations of Physics & Applied Technology as Dynamic Frameworks in Pre-Service STEM
    with Philippe Vincent, Kosta Dolenc, and Mateja Ploj Virtič
    Foundations of Science 1 (1): 1-30. 2020.
    In recent decades, the development of sciences and technologies had a significant impact in society. This impact has been object of analysis from several standpoints, i.e., scientific, communication, historical and anthropological. Consequently, serious changes were required by the society. One of these has been the emerging relationship science in society and its foundations of applied sciences. A related foundational challenging is the educational process, which was and still is an unlimited c…Read more
  •  21
    In this paper we present the relations between mathematics and mathematics education in Italy between the 12th and the 16th century. Since the subject is extremely wide, we will focus on two case-studies to point out some relevant aspects of this phenomenon: 1) Fibonacci’s studies (12th-13th century); 2) Abacus schools. More particularly, Fibonacci, probably the greatest European mathematician of the Middle Ages, made the calculations with Hindu-Arabic digits widely spread in Europe; Abacus scho…Read more
  •  21
    On the Jesuit Edition of Newton’s Principia. Science and Advanced Researches in the Western Civilization
    with Paolo Bussotti
    Advances in Historical Studies 3 (1): 33-55. 2014.
    In this research, we present the most important characteristics of the so called and so much explored Jesuit Edition of Newton’s Philosophi? Naturalis Principia Mathematica edited by Thomas Le Seur and Fran?ois Jacquier in the 1739-1742. The edition, densely annotated by the commentators (the notes and the comments are longer than Newton’s text itself) is a very treasure concerning Newton’s ideas and his heritage, e.g., Newton’s geometry and mathematical physics. Conspicuous pieces of informatio…Read more
  •  20
    James Prescott Joule’s (1818–1889) bicentenary took place in 2018 and commemorated by the IDTC with a Symposium—‘James Joule’s Bicentenary: Scientific and Pedagogical Issues Concerning Energy Conservation’—at the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS & BSHS), 14th–17th September, 2018, in London. This symposium had three main objectives: It aimed specifically to celebrate James Joule’s achievements considering the most recent historiographical works with a particular focus on the pri…Read more
  •  20
    Generally speaking, virtual displacement or work concerns to a timely idea according to which a motion of a certain body is not the unique possible motion. The process of reducing this motion to a particular magnitude and concept, eventually minimizing as a hypothesis, can be traced back to the Aristotelian school. In the history and philosophy of science one finds various enunciations of the Principle of Virtual Laws and its virtual displacement or work applications, i.e., from Aristotle to Lei…Read more
  •  19
    Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around the Renaissance: Machines, Machineries and Perpetual Motion
    with Paolo Bussotti
    Acta Baltica Historiae Et Philosophiae Scientiarum 3 (1): 69-87. 2015.
    This paper is the second part of our recent paper ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around the Renaissance: How Science and Technique Work’. In the first paper—which discussed some aspects of the relations between science and technology from Antiquity to the Renaissance—we highlighted the differences between the Aristotelian/Euclidean tradition and the Archimedean tradition. We also pointed out the way in which the two traditions were perceived around the Ren…Read more
  •  18
    The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to show the principal aspects of the way in which Newton conceived his mathematical concepts and methods and applied them to rational mechanics in his Principia; (2) to explain how the editors of the Geneva Edition interpreted, clarified, and made accessible to a broader public Newton’s perfect but often elliptic proofs. Following this line of inquiry, we will explain the successes of Newton’s mechanics, but also the problematic aspects of his perfect geomet…Read more
  •  17
    Thermodynamic foundations of physical chemistry: reversible processes and thermal equilibrium into the history
    with Abdelkader Anakkar, Emilio Marco Pellegrino, and Maxime Nagels
    Foundations of Chemistry 21 (3): 297-323. 2018.
    In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines:…Read more
  •  17
    Pierre de Fermat is known as the inventor of modern number theory. He invented–improved many methods useful in this discipline. Fermat often claimed to have proved his most difficult theorems thanks to a method of his own invention: the infinite descent. He wrote of numerous applications of this procedure. Unfortunately, he left only one almost complete demonstration and an outline of another demonstration. The outline concerns the theorem that every prime number of the form 4n + 1 is the sum of…Read more
  •  14
    Conceptual polymorphism of entropy into the history: extensions of the second law of thermodynamics towards statistical physics and chemistry during nineteenth–twentieth centuries
    with Emilio Marco Pellegrino, Abdelkader Anakkar, and Maxime Nagels
    Foundations of Chemistry 23 (3): 337-378. 2021.
    After the birth of thermodynamics’ second principle—outlined in Carnot's Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu —several studies provided new arguments in the field. Mainly, they concerned the thermodynamics’ first principle—including energy conceptualisation—, the analytical aspects of the heat propagation, the statistical aspects of the mechanical theory of heat. In other words, the second half of nineteenth century was marked by an intense interdisciplinary research activity between physi…Read more
  •  13
    It is a book review
  •  12
    European society for the history of science
    Centaurus 54 (2): 202-203. 2012.
    ESHS reporting
  •  11
    European society for the history of science
    with M. Rosa Massa-Esteve
    Centaurus 53 (3): 253-254. 2011.
    ESHS Reporting