Newtonian and Eulerian dynamical axioms. V. Prehistory of mechanical constraints

Abstract

This is the fifth part of series of articles dedicated to the Newtonian and Eulerian dynamical axioms; it is the natural continuation and development of the last of them [17], where the physical motivation of the notion of mechanical constrains imposed on mass-point and rigid body systems are discussed at lenght. Numerous authentical data are adduced in connection with the conception and premature birth of the constraint concept in the early history of rational mechanics, special stress being laid on Galileo's Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche Intorno a Due Nuove Scienze, Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, and D'Alembert's Traité de Dynamique, where the germs of the constraint notion may be traced.