On Aristotle's "Physics 4" Book

This is Galilei's second Dialogue and this book is not on world systems but on his scientific work, more particularly on his law of free fall and on projectile motion.

(I read parts of this book as additional source material in a physics course, so don't take this review too literally.)

Galilei wrote Two New Sciences in his dying days, while suffering from illness and his lifelong house arrest by the Church. Since he wasn't allowed to publish on astronomy anymore - this was considered to inflammatory to Christian tastes - he decided to publish on physics.

Almost everybody knows the infamous inclined planes which Galilei used to study motion of falling objects. His (consequently discovered) law of free fall is one of the ingredients that Isaac Newton would use to synthesize a whole new mechanical world system in his Principia.

Anyway, falling objects and projectile motions are the objects of this second Dialogue. And I have to admit that I found this book less readable than Siderius Nuncius or Dialogues concerning Two Chief World Systems. There is a lot more mathematics in this book, and a lot less dialogue; hence, it feels somewhat forced at times.

But then again, I didn't read the whole book, just big, loose parts as additional information. I cannot really recommend this book; it's less important as an historical document (compared to his two earlier mentioned works) and it's less accessible (again, compared to his other two works).

As a closing remark, I have to add that this edition is rather cheap. It looks like it's printed to get easy money; the translation is correct, but there are no introductory notes, no references, no end notes, etc. Also, I find it strange that this book - which is definitely a stand-alone work - is not added on Goodreads (I added this edition, since there are no alternatives available). Strange...