José Montesinos

From Circularity to Centrifugal Force
(Presentation of sources)

We will focus on various texts where the geometrical tension between straightness and circularity is considered, as well as the corresponding physical relations between straight and circular motions. In particular, the elusive concept of centrifugal force, born in direct relation with the Cartesian principle of inertia, central in the explanation of gravity and light by Huygens and Descartes, is present in one way or another in all cosmologies of the 17th-century: Borelli, Newton, Leibniz...

Newton built his system of the world with the concept of centripetal force only, but the centrifugal force, initially expelled from his work, found its way back through absolute space, the most “metaphysical” of the Newtonian concepts.

The centrifugal force, today considered a fictitious force in the official interpretation of mechanics, has gone through a long and complicated conceptual voyage whose history deserves to be studied in depth. This will allow a better understanding and an improved teaching practice at high school and university levels.

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José L. Montesinos Sirera

José L. Montesinos received his degree in mathematics from the University of Madrid (1967) and his Master in Sciences at the University of Chicago (1977). He is professor of mathematics in a secondary school and the director of the Fundación Canaria Orotava de Historia de la Ciencia. He is the author of Historia de las matemáticas en la enseñanza secundaria, Madrid 2000; he is the editor (with C. Solis) of Largo campo di filosofare. Eurosymposium Galileo 2001, La Orotava 2001, and Ciencia y Romanticismo, La Orotava 2002.