Galileo's Discovery of Scaling Laws
arXiv:physics/0110031 · doi:10.1119/1.1475329
Abstract
Galileo's realization that nature is not scale invariant, motivating his subsequent discovery of scaling laws, is traced to two lectures he gave on the geography of Dante's Inferno.
15 pages, Latex. The discussion section has been rewritten to improve the exposition, and to include discussion of a 1609 letter to Antonio de'Medici. It has been submitted to American Journal of Physics