Mathematics enters artillery
Nova scientia by Niccolò Tartaglia, published in Venice in 1537, applied mathematics to artillery. Tartaglia compiled artillery tables: how the range of a shot depends on the elevation of the barrel, and at what angle the shot goes farthest (Tartaglia gave 45 degrees).
The treatise rejected the then-received view that the shot flies straight while the powder pushes it, and then falls vertically. Tartaglia insisted that the trajectory is curved from the start. He did not establish its exact form (Galileo would show the parabola a century later, in the Discorsi), but he stated the problem: a cannon shot moves by rules that can be described geometrically.
Why this date
exact: Venice, 1537.
Node sources
- MacTutor History of Mathematics, «Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia» Verified 5 Oct 2026
he wrote Nova Scientia (1537) on the application of mathematics to artillery fire.
"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.