Cause, Experiment, and Science

The book that ushered in the modern age of experimental science was a best-seller; controversial, it so caught the fancy of intelligent laymen that it sold out a once and an expanded second edition was printed that same year -- 1612. Stillman Drake's form of reviving what was Galileo's first book on physics will itself be found controversial by specialists and entertaining by the interested lay reader.Drake's imaginative tour de force presents the first English translation of "Bodies That Stay atop Water, or Move in It" since the seventeenth century. Moreover, Drake has created a Galilean dialogue among three personae Galileo himself employed in two later dialogues -- Sagredo (an intelligent aristocrat), Simplicio (an Aristotelian), and Salviati (who represents the new science and supports Galileo). The whole of Galileo's "Bodies" is included, printed in a second color to distinguish it from this fictional contemporary discussion.