In chapter two, Finocchiaro gives excerpts from Galileo's Discourse on Bodies in Water. Galileo argues that some people are misinterpreting observations of surface tension to suggest that shape determines buoyant force. Galileo argues that shape is irrelevant to the buoyant force on an object that has pierced the surface of water, and that observations of dense but thin objects testing on the surface of water are in fact observations of resistance to piercing of the surface. Definitely a clear thinker, and broad in his interests.
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