A couple months ago, Science magazine had a retrospective by Alex Gomez-Marin on Galileo's The Assayer, which was published 400 years ago this year. Part of a series of scientific disputes regarding the nature of comets, this particular piece lays out Galileo's methodological perspective on how science should be done. I've only read selected excerpts in translation, but I do know that others (e.g., Flemish contemporary Simon Stevin) held similar views.
Meanwhile the December issue of Physics Today features a Backscatter item on Torricelli's barometer, by Karina Cooper. Torricelli was Galileo's last "student", and his work with the barometer was an important step in the understanding of hydrostatic pressure. Together with Torricelli's efflux law, this achievement ranks him as a major founder of 17th century fluid mechanics, along with Stevin and Galileo's older student, Benedetto Castelli.
My interest in these matters, and the history of classical physics more generaly, has grown noticeably in the last year or so, particularly in the arena of fluid mechanics, which is an interdisciplinary field involving physics, mathematics, and engineering. Seeing these items in Science and Physics Today is a great way to wind down the year of 2023.
As a bonus I praise Physics Today for featuring a cover story in November on research in contemporary fluid mechanics, namely the piece by Detlef Lohse and Olga Shishkina on "Ultimate turbulent thermal convection". However, the authors' insistence on the relevance of the reported work for real world situations, such as atmospheric and photospheric convection, seems to me insincere when they focus on results for "classical regime" aspect ratios between 0.5 and 1.0. The atmospheric and photospheric examples involve large aspect ratios.
Nonetheless, the cover is worth reproducing here. We don't get to see fluid mechanics featured on the front cover of Physics Today all that often!
If I don't write again this year, may you all have a wonderful holiday season and a blessed new year. See you in 2024!
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