Capecchi Danilo
Early Sci Med. 2014;19(3):211-35. doi: 10.1163/15733823-00193p01.
This paper re-examines the first documented attempts to establish the quantitative law of motion for a body oscillating about a fixed axis (a compound pendulum). This is quite a complex problem as weight and motion are not concentrated in a point, but are spread over a volume. Original documents by René Descartes and Gilles Personne de Roberval, who made the first contributions to solving the problem, are discussed. The two scientists had important insights into the problem which, although they were incomplete, nevertheless somehow complemented each other - at least when seen from the viewpoint of modern mechanics. Descartes was right in considering only the absolute value of the inertia forces, Roberval was right in assuming that the force of gravity should also be taken into account.
本文重新审视了首次有文献记载的关于建立绕固定轴摆动的物体（复摆）运动定量定律的尝试。这是一个相当复杂的问题，因为重量和运动并非集中于一点，而是分布在一个体积范围内。文中讨论了勒内·笛卡尔和吉勒·佩尔松·德·罗贝瓦尔的原始文献，他们为解决该问题做出了最初的贡献。两位科学家对该问题有着重要的见解，尽管这些见解并不完整，但却在某种程度上相互补充——至少从现代力学的角度来看是这样。笛卡尔只考虑惯性力的绝对值是正确的，罗贝瓦尔假设重力也应被考虑在内是正确的。
