Benjamin Robins (18th century founder of scientific ballistics): some European dimensions and past and future perceptions

Abstract

Summary Some remarks in favour of the start-up of a European Solids Mechanics Conference are first made. A very brief outline of Robins' life is then given, followed by a review of his collected papers. He was born in Bath, England, in 1707 and died at Fort St David, India, in 1751. This should place in time the man with whom the lecture is concerned. Several scientific topics to which he made contributions.—the ballistic pendulum, the whirling machine, air resistance sustained by solid shot and the Magnus effect—are described about the changes in his professional inclinations and personal ambitions with time. There was, and has been since the 1730s, controversy about Robins' work between Continental and English scientists. The author briefly details some of the exchanges on this score and uses it to suggest that 1992 is a year after which greater efforts might be made to attain more objective opinions on the history of European mechanics than hitherto. Some of the difficulties which stand in the way are noted and a few suggestions are made for improving the situation. That workers in mechanics come better to appreciate their subject's history is a theme here explicitly and implicitly advocated.