Galilean transformation
Transformación de Galileo
- Date
- 1638 · confidence high
- Place
- Arcetri, Florence, Italy
- Credited to
- Galileo Galilei
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Confined at Arcetri by the Inquisition, Galileo formulated in 'Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche' the principle that the laws of motion are the same for any observer in uniform motion, with velocities that add and subtract as vectors when changing reference frame. The work was printed in Leiden, beyond the reach of Roman censorship.
The book was printed in Leiden (Netherlands) by the Elsevier publishing house, but Galileo wrote it while confined at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence.
What it led to
- Foundation of Newtonian mechanics
- Replacement by Lorentz transformations in special relativity
Built on
- Galileo's inclined-plane experiments on falling bodies