Editing Nicolo Tartaglia (section)

==Ballistics==
[[Image:Projectile_trajectories_from_Tartaglia's_Nova_scientia.jpg|thumb|Various projectile trajectories from [http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/ECHOdocuView?url=/mpiwg/online/permanent/library/QRPCCK2N&start=31&tocMode=thumbs&pn=34&viewMode=text_image ''Nova Scientia''.]]]
''Nova Scientia'' (1537) was Tartaglia's first published work, described by Matteo Valleriani as:

{{quote|... one of the most fundamental works on mechanics of the Renaissance, indeed, the first to transform aspects of practical knowledge accumulated by the early modern artillerists into a theoretical ''and'' mathematical framework.<ref>See Valleriani, Matteo, [http://edition-open-sources.org/sources/6/1/index.html#5 ''Metallurgy, Ballistics and Epistemic Instruments: The Nova Scientia of Nicolò Tartaglia'', 2013, p. 1.]</ref>}}

Then dominant Aristotelian physics preferred categories like "heavy" and "natural" and "violent" to describe motion, generally eschewing mathematical explanations. Tartaglia brought mathematical models to the fore, "eviscerat[ing] Aristotelian terms of projectile movement" in the words of Mary J. Henninger-Voss.<ref>Henninger-Voss, Mary J., "How the 'New Science' of Cannons Shook up the Aristotelian Cosmos", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 63, 3 (July 2002), pp. 371-397. "eviscerated": p. 376.</ref> One of his findings was that the maximum range of a projectile was achieved by directing the cannon at a 45° angle to the horizon.

Tartaglia's model for a cannonball's flight was that it proceeded from the cannon in a straight line, then after a while started to arc towards the earth along a circular path, then finally dropped in another straight line directly towards the earth.<ref>See Valleriani, Matteo, [http://edition-open-sources.org/sources/6/3/index.html#39 ''Metallurgy, Ballistics and Epistemic Instruments: The Nova Scientia of Nicolò Tartaglia'', 2013, pp. 169-181.]</ref> At the end of Book 2 of ''Nova Scientia'', Tartaglia proposes to find the length of that initial rectilinear path for a projectile fired at an elevation of 45°, engaging in a Euclidean-style argument, but one with numbers attached to line segments and areas, and eventually proceeds algebraically to find the desired quantity (''procederemo per algebra'' in his words).<ref>See Valleriani, Matteo, [http://www.edition-open-sources.org/sources/6/12/index.html#59 ''Metallurgy, Ballistics and Epistemic Instruments: The Nova Scientia of Nicolò Tartaglia'', 2013, pp. 176-177.]</ref>

Mary J. Henninger-Voss notes that "Tartaglia's work on military science had an enormous circulation throughout Europe", being a reference for common gunners into the eighteenth century, sometimes through unattributed translations. He influenced Galileo as well, who owned "richly annotated" copies of his works on ballistics as he set about solving the projectile problem once and for all.<ref>See Henninger-Voss, Mary J., "How the 'New Science' of Cannons Shook up the Aristotelian Cosmos", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 63, 3 (July 2002), pp. 391-393 for discussion and quotes.</ref>