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
_All Figures, therefore, of whatever greatnesse, may go, and not
go, to the Bottom, according as their Sumities or Tops shall be
bathed or not bathed._
And this Accident being common to all sorts of Figures, without
exception of so much as one. Figure hath, therefore, no part in the
production of this Effect, of sometimes sinking, and sometimes again
not sinking, but only the being sometimes conjoyned to, and sometimes
seperated from, the supereminent Air: which cause, in fine, who so
shall rightly, and, as we say, with both his Eyes, consider this
business, will find that it is reduced to, yea, that it really is the
same with, the true, Naturall and primary cause of Natation or
Submersion; to wit, the excess or deficiency of the Gravity of the
water, in relation to the Gravity of that Solid Magnitude, that is
demitted into the water. For like as a Plate of Lead, as thick as the
back of a Knife, which being put into the water by it self alone goes
to the bottom, if upon it you fasten a piece of Cork four fingers
thick, doth continue afloat, for that now the Solid that is demitted
in the water, is not, as before, more grave than the water, but less,
so the Board of Ebony, of its own nature more grave than water; and,
therefore, descending to the bottom, when it is demitted by it self
alone into the water, if it shall be put upon the water, conjoyned
with an Expanded vail of Air, that together with the Ebony doth
descend, and that it be such, as that it doth make with it a compound
less grave than so much water in Mass, as equalleth the Mass already
submerged and depressed beneath the Levell of the waters Surface, it
shall not descend any farther, but shall rest, for no other than the
universall and most common cause, which is that Solid Magnitudes, less
grave _in specie_ than the water, go not to the bottom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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