Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences by Galileo Galilei

Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences is considered one of the greatest works in western science. Written near the end of his life, the book had to be published abroad and eventually led to Galileo’s condemnation. Written as a discussion between a master and two students, it sets forth its hundred experiments and summarizes the conclusions Galileo drew from those experiments in a brisk, direct style. Galileo discusses aspects of fracture of solid bodies, cohesion, leverage, the speed of light, sound, pendulums, falling bodies, projectiles, uniform motion, accelerated motion, and the strength of wires, rods and beams under different loadings and placements. The work is recognized as the first systematic attempt to give a mathematical treatment of kinematics.