We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
Another question concerns the oscillations of pendulums, and it falls into two parts. One is whether all oscillations, large, medium, and small, are truly and precisely made in equal times. The other concerns the ratio of times for bodies hung from unequal threads; the times of their vibrations, I mean. … As to the prior question, whether the same pendulum makes all its oscillations – the largest, the average, and the smallest – in truly and exactly equal times, I submit myself to that which I once heard from our Academician [Galileo]. He demonstrated that the moveable which falls along chords subtended by every arc [of a given circle] necessarily passes over them all in equal times. …
As to the ratio of times of oscillations of bodies hanging from strings of different lengths, those times are as the square roots of the string lengths; or should we say that the lengths are as the doubled ratios, or squares, of the times.
Galileo Galilei, Two New Sciences (1638)FINDING A CLOCK THAT WOULDN'T GET SEASICK
Navigation has provided one of the most persistent motives for measuring time accurately. All navigators depend on continuous time information in order to find out where they are and to chart their course. But until about two centuries ago, no one was able to make a clock that could keep time accurately at sea.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
