The article investigates the role of symbolic means of knowledge representation in concept development using the historical example of medieval diagrams of change employed in early modern work on the motion of fall. The parallel cases of Galileo Galilei, Thomas Harriot, and René Descartes and Isaac Beeckman are discussed. It is argued that the similarities concerning the achievements as well as the shortcomings of their respective work on the motion of fall can to a large extent be attributed to their (...) shared use of means of knowledge representation handed down from antiquity and the Middle Ages. While the interpretation of medieval diagrams was unproblematic in the scholastic context from which they arose, in the early modern context, which was characterized by the confluence of natural philosophy and practical mathematics, it became ambiguous. It was the early modern mathematicians’ work within this contradictory framework that brought about a new conceptualization of motion which, in particular, eventually led to an infinitesimal concept of velocity. In this process, the diagrams themselves remained largely unchanged and thus functioned as a catalyst for concept development. (shrink)

In this article it is argued that a continuity exists between Karl Schwarzschild's work on foundational problems on the borderline of physics and astronomy and his later occupation with general relativity. Based on an analysis of Schwarzschild's published works as well as formerly neglected unpublished notes it is shown that, long before the rise of general relativity, Schwarzschild was concerned with problems that later became associated with that theory. In particular he considered non-Euclidean cosmologies, linked the phenomena of gravitation and (...) inertia to the problem of the precession of Mercury's perihelion, and entertained the possibility of inertial frames rotating with respect to one another. It is argued that these earlier considerations, which reflect his interdisciplinary outlook on the foundations of the exact sciences, enabled Schwarzschild to recognize the significance of general relativity for astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology earlier than most of his collegues and shaped his contributions to this theory. (shrink)

This book is divided into two sections. The first section is concerned with the emergence and expansion of a form of mechanical knowledge defined by us as pre-classical mechanics. The definition purports to the period roughly between the 15th and the 17th century, before classical mechanics was formulated as a coherent and comprehensive mechanical theory in the sequel of Newton's work. The investigation of problems that were isolated from each other at the time but cohered into some kind of stable (...) broad intellectual framework characterizes pre-classical mechanics. The second section is dedicated to specific case studies that present the application of a pre-classical framework to determined problems and to the investigation of specific natural phenomena. It consists of five case studies that illustrate in detail a reconstruction of pre-classical mechanics in particular constellations. Early modern theoretical, technical and social contexts transformed ancient and medieval mechanical knowledge in the course of its transmission. (shrink)