Stillman Drake

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Stillman Drake (December 24, 1910 – October 6, 1993) was a Canadian historian of science best known for his work on Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). Drake published over 131 books, articles, and book chapters on Galileo. Drake received his first academic appointment in 1967 as full professor at the University of Toronto after a full career as a financial consultant. During that time he had begun his studies of the works of Galileo and translated Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1953), four of Galileo's "lesser" works in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957), and Galileo's The Assayer in The Controversy of Comets (1960), co-authored with C. D. O'Malley.[1]

Possibly his most significant contribution to the history of science was his defense of Galileo's experiments as documented in his published Two New Sciences and in his manuscript notes. Drake showed how the complex interaction of experimental measurement and mathematical analysis led Galileo to his law of falling bodies. This clearly refuted Alexandre Koyré's claim that experiment played no significant part in Galileo's thought.[citation needed]

In 1988 Drake was awarded the Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society. He spent his entire academic career (beginning in 1967 after decades working as a consultant) at the University of Toronto's Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.[1]

[edit] Selected works by Stillman Drake

  • Stillman Drake (1949) Book of Anglo-Saxon Verse.
  • Stillman Drake (1953). Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Stillman Drake (1957). Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo. New York: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-09239-3
  • Stillman Drake (1973). "Galileo's Discovery of the Law of Free Fall". Scientific American v. 228, #5, pp. 84-92.
  • Stillman Drake (1974), translator of Galileo's Two New Sciences, University of Wisconsin Press, 1974. ISBN 0-299-06404-2. A new translation including sections on centers of gravity and the force of percussion.
  • Stillman Drake (1978). Galileo At Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-16226-5

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Jed Z. Buchwald, Noel M. Swerdlow. "Eloge: Stillman Drake, 24 December 1910-6 October 1993". Isis, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 663-666.