A Discourse Presented to the Most Serene Don Cosimo II., Great Duke of Tuscany, Concerning the Natation of Bodies Vpon, and Submersion In, the Water.Galilei, Galileo
Science
A Discourse Presented to the Most Serene Don Cosimo II., Great Duke of Tuscany, Concerning the Natation of Bodies Vpon, and Submersion In, the Water.
Galilei, Galileo
Hydrostatics; Specific gravity
The truth of this Proposition is sufficiently manifest in all those
Solid Figures, that determine in their uppermost part in a plane
Superficies: for making such Figures of some Matter specifically as
grave as the water, putting them into the water, so that the whole
Mass be covered, it is manifest, that they shall rest in all places,
provided, that such a Matter equall in weight to the water, may be
exactly adjusted: and they shall by consequence, rest or lie even with
the Levell of the water, without making any Rampart. If, therefore, in
respect of the Matter, such Figures are apt to rest without
submerging, though deprived of the help of the Rampart, it is
manifest, that they may admit so much encrease of Gravity, (without
encreasing their Masses) as is the weight of as much water as would be
contained within the Rampart, that is made about their upper plane
Surface: by the help of which being sustained, they shall rest afloat,
but being bathed, they shall descend, having been made graver than the
water. In Figures, therefore, that determine above in a plane, we may
cleerly comprehend, that the Rampart added or removed, may prohibit or
permit the descent: but in those Figures that go lessening upwards
towards the top, some Persons may, and that not without much seeming
Reason, doubt whether the same may be done, and especially by those
which terminate in a very acute Point, such as are your Cones and
small Piramids. Touching these, therefore, as more dubious than the
rest, I will endeavour to demonstrate, that they also lie under the
same Accident of going, or not going to the Bottom, be they of any
whatever bigness. Let therefore the Cone be A B D, made of a matter
specifically as grave as the water; it is manifest that being put all
under water, it shall rest in all places (alwayes provided, that it
shall weigh exactly as much as the water, which is almost impossible
to effect) and that any small weight being added to it, it shall sink
to the bottom: but if it shall descend downwards gently, I say, that
it shall make the Rampart E S T O, and that there shall stay out of
the water the point A S T, tripple in height to the Rampart E S: which
is manifest, for the Matter of the Cone weighing equally with the
water, the part submerged _S B D T_, becomes indifferent to move
downwards or upwards; and the Cone _A S T_, being equall in Mass to
the water that would be contained in the concave of the Rampart _E S T
O_, shall be also equall unto it in Gravity: and, therefore, there
shall be a perfect _Equilibrium_, and, consequently, a Rest. Now here
ariseth a doubt, whether the Cone _A B D_ may be made heavier, in such
sort, that when it is put wholly under water, it goes to the bottom,
but yet not in such sort, as to take from the Rampart the vertue of
sustaining it that it sink not, and, the reason of the doubt is this:
that although at such time as the Cone _A B D_ is specifically as
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