About this Item
CONTAINING AN ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION BY FERMAT. First edition in French, very rare, of two works by Castelli and Torricelli which founded the modern science of hydraulics, and including an original contribution by Fermat which is published for the first time in this work - only two other scientific works of Fermat were published in his lifetime, both of extreme rarity. "The translator of Benedetto Castelli's work on measuring running water inserted into the work brilliant note of Fermat's on a letter of Synesius. The letter itself was so obscure that Père Petau, who wrote a commentary on Synesius, admitted that he could not understand it" (from Fermat's obituary in the Journal des Sçavans, mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Obituaries/Fermat_obituary/). Fermat's contribution, the 'Observation sur Synesius,' begins as follows (our translation): "The pages which remainempty in this quire made me think of filling them with thesplendid observation which I learned some days ago fromthe incomparable M. Fermat, who does me the honourof being my friend and of frequently talking with me. Itis in the fifteenth letter of Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene,which deals with something not understood by any ofhis commentators, not even by the learned Father Petau,as he himself avows in his notes on this author. I give thisobservation even more willingly as it has much in commonwith the treatises here printed." The ailing Synesius (378-430 AD) wrote in 402 to his friend and teacher Hypatia asking for an instrument he called a hydroscopium or baryllion, and provided detailed instructions as to its construction. When the works of Synesius were published by the Jesuit theologian Denis Petau (1583-1652) in 1640, Petau confessed that he was unable to understand Synesius' letter. Castelli asked Fermat for his opinion, and the latter's response was published as the 'Observation sur Synesius'. Fermat showed that the instrument described by Synesius was a hydrometer, used to measure the specific gravities of liquids, and he gives a detailed description of its construction, with a diagram. The text of 'Observation sur Synesius' was reprinted in the preface of the edition of Diophantus' Arithmetica edited by Fermat's son Samuel (1670), in the 'Erudito lectori' of Fermat's Varia opera (1679), and in his Oeuvres (Tome I, Appendix). The first work is a translation of Dimostrazioni geometriche della misura dell'acque correnti (1628). "Castelli's work is considered one of the cornerstones of modern hydraulics, and its importance is such that he is often claimed to have been the founder of the Italian hydraulics school. This treatise on the speed of liquids in channels and on the measurement of that speed is the first to enunciate the well-known theorem in hydraulics known by the author's name. Castelli proposed the first accurate and effective methods for measuring the volume of moving water. This fundamental step in hydraulic mechanics and engineering was accomplished by the geometric method of using the cross-sections of a river to measure the volume. He also discusses the relation of velocity and head-in flow through an orifice. Castelli's work is quoted by almost every major survey of hydraulics ." (Roberts & Trent, p. 66). The present French translation of Castelli's work has a lengthy preface, 'a messeigneurs lescommissaires. pour la jonction des mers,' signed bySaporta, on the great scheme (actually carried out underLouis XIV) to join the Mediterranean to the Atlantic bymeans of a canal joining the Garonne river to the Etangde Thau in the south, the famous Canal du Midi. It exerted a great influence on the French engineer Pierre-Paul Riquet Caraman (1609-80), the architect of the Canal du Midi, who had read Castelli's work in this first French edition. The second work is a translation of a set of propositions entitled De motu aquarum, part of Torricelli's work De motu gravium, which was first published in his Opera geometrica (1644). "The treatise [De motu gravium]. Seller Inventory # 5780
Contact seller
Report this item
