- Giambattista Benedetti
Giambattista (Gianbattista) Benedetti (
august 14 1530 –January 20 1590 ) was an Italian mathematician fromVenice who wrote "La gnomonica". He was a Copernican who determined that falling objects fall at the same rate in 1553, a discovery often credited toGalileo . This is called the "equality of fall rates."In a letter to
Cipriano de Rore dated from around 1563, Benedetti proposed a new theory of the cause of consonance, arguing that sincesound consists of air waves or vibrations, in the more consonant intervals the shorter, more frequent waves concurred with the longer, more frequent waves at regular intervals.Isaac Beeckman andMarin Mersenne both adopted this theory in the next century. When they sought Descartes' opinion on Benedetti's theory, Descartes declined to judge the goodness of consonances by such a rational method. Descartes argued that theear prefers one or another according to the musical context rather than because of any concordance of vibrations. [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-32]In 1572, the
Jesuit Jean Taisner published from the press of Johann Birkmann ofCologne a work entitled "Opusculum perpetua memoria dignissimum, de natura magnetis et ejus effectibus, Item de motu continuo". This is considered a piece ofplagiarism , as Taisnier presents, as though his own, the "Epistola de magnete" ofPeter of Maricourt and a treatise on the fall of bodies by Benedetti.ources
* [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-32 Dictionary of the History of Ideas]
* [http://www.wackyuses.com/experiments/antigravitymachine.htm Fall rates info]
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12079e.htm Catholic Encyclopedia: Pierre de Maricourt]
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