Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Ballistics
(1,069 words)

Ballistics (the science of the behavior of projectiles) was one of the disciplines that played a key role in the emergence of the new science of the 16th and 17th centuries. It provided both a motivation and one of the trickiest applications for mechanics as a mathematical science of motion. It was also related, not always straightforwardly, with early modern weaponry and artillery.

Two concepts of the motion of a projectile were in competition. First, it was possible to see the phenomenon as the motion of a body through a continuous medium. Alternativel…

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Epple, Moritz, “Ballistics”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_017306>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160321



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