The Forerunners of Impact Theory: Huygens and Mariotte

Abstract

We award the title of forerunners to Christiaan Huygens and Edmé Mariotte, two men closely linked to Academy of Sciences of Paris in the first years of its progress, and with whom impact theory began. The fact that Huygens at this time was paying special attention to problems of motion of bodies in dense media, especially projectiles, contributed to this. Mariotte was likewise concerned with hydraulic phenomena in general, and the forces on the blades of a hydraulic wheel in particular. Both pursued their preoccupations in a wider context, where experiments and solutions with practical applications converge.