work done by scholars, monks, and craftsmen helped to set the stage for the later scientific revolution. Among many examples that could be cited, two stand out. The first was in the area of mechanics . To build the great cathedrals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, medieval architects needed to develop a solid understanding of statics, the branch of mechanics dealing with stationary objects. Medieval scholars also worked on basic questions of dynamics, the branch of mechanics dealing with moving bodies. Aristotle had a complete (though incorrect) theory of dynamics. With the
...more
