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Marin Getaldić on Defining the Earth Radius
Andrija Bonifačić
Sažetak
Marin Getaldić (1568—1626), the patrician of Dubrovnik, a famous physicist and mathematician, paid particular attention to the new algebraic method of solving geometrical problems introduced by François Viète's algebra. Getaldić was a good friend of his. He worked with him thus paving the way for analytic geometry. This side of his genius manifested greatly in his posthumous work »De resolutione et compositione mathematica«, Rome 1630.
In this treatise is presented the elaboration of one of the most complex problems from the author's work — the third problem of the fourth volume — which is of geographical and astronomic interest. Getaldić proposes two ways which can be used to define the Earth radius. Both ways are directed to solve only one problem which says: »To define a triangle to which the base is given and also the lengths for which the sides of the triangle exceed its height«. The problem has got two cases as the height falls either inside the triangle or outside. In both proposes, where the data are given through the geodetic measurements, the height of the wanted triangle presents the Earth radius. The author did not do any measurements, although he wanted to, but nobody else has tried to do that so far.
The author was anxious about solving the problem not only by algebraic analysis, but by a synthetic method, too. Thus synth etic elaboration of the problem, to which the above analysis refers, has been presented in this article. In one text with two drawings — a) and b) — both cases are solved in two ways: A) and B); the author gives in detail four analyses and four syntheses. This work can be considered a contribution to the Croatian translation of the Second part of Marin Getaldić's Collected Works, which we have been expecting with great interest for seven years.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
244671
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.6.1979.
Posjeta: 656 *