Mechanics, Volume I

to have remained, in which sense these terms Referring to "Statics" and "Mechanics" have already commonly begun to be used everywhere. Furthermore, a huge difference in time intervenes between these disciplines: for Statics began to be cultivated already before the time of Archimedes, whereas Galileo only finally laid the first foundations of Mechanics when he investigated the descent of heavy bodies. In these later times, however, following the invention of the Analysis of infinites Calculus: the mathematical study of continuous change, which Euler and his contemporaries called the analysis of infinites, both sciences have received such great increases that those things discovered before over so long an interval of time almost vanish in comparison to these. Indeed, these so many discoveries, by which these sciences have been increased and promoted up to this time, are scattered through so many journals and works that it is most difficult for a student of these matters to seek them out and read through them. Moreover, what causes the greatest trouble is that some things are proposed without any analysis or proof, others are supported by proofs that are too perplexed and arranged in the manner of the ancients Euler refers to the "manner of the ancients" as the traditional geometric style of proof used by Greek mathematicians, which he found cumbersome compared to new algebraic methods, while others still are derived from foreign and less-than-genuine principles, such that they cannot be understood and digested without the greatest effort and a massive expenditure of time. As far as Statics is concerned, there appeared a work by Varignon Pierre Varignon (1654–1722), a French mathematician whose "Nouvelle Mécanique" was published posthumously in 1725—almost complete and perfect in every respect—consisting of two volumes written in the French language. Although this work bears the title of Mechanics, it is nevertheless entirely occupied with