Naylor Ron
Division of Philosophy, University of Greenwich.
Isis. 2007 Mar;98(1):1-22. doi: 10.1086/512829.
The aim of Galileo's tidal theory was to show that the tides were produced entirely by the earth's motion and thereby to demonstrate the physical truth of Copernicanism. However, in the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Galileo did not explain some of the most significant aspects of the theory completely. As a consequence, the way the theory works has long been disputed. Though there exist a number of interpretations in the literature, the most widely accepted are based on ideas that are not explicitly articulated by Galileo in the Dialogue. This essay attempts to understand the way the theory functions in terms of Galilean physics. It is an interpretation of the theory based solely on Galileo's arguments--and one that reveals it to have had some unrecognized consequences. This interpretation indicates that Galileo's theory would not have worked in the manner he described in the Dialogue.
伽利略潮汐理论的目的是表明潮汐完全是由地球运动产生的，从而证明哥白尼学说的物理真实性。然而，在《关于两种主要世界体系的对话》中，伽利略并没有完全解释该理论的一些最重要方面。因此，该理论的运作方式长期以来一直存在争议。尽管文献中有多种解释，但最被广泛接受的解释所依据的观点在《对话》中并未被伽利略明确阐述。本文试图从伽利略物理学的角度理解该理论的运作方式。这是一种仅基于伽利略论点的理论解释——并且这种解释揭示了该理论有一些未被认识到的结果。这种解释表明，伽利略的理论并非以他在《对话》中所描述的方式起作用。
