the entry of history in naval science

2nd INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND MARITIME YTU GIDF, Besiktas, Istanbul, 23-‐24 October 2014

Euler, Leonhard. Scien&a Navalis seu Tractatus de Construendis ac Dirigendis Navibus. St. Petersburg: Typis Academiae ScienLarum, 1749 [First ediLon].

Historical awareness in the science of shipbuilding The Scien&a navalis [Euler, 1749] or Naval Science, which Leonhard Euler (1707 -‐ 1783) was a teacher and in its own way a precursor, from Lme immemorial languishing on the bookcases of libraries, neglected by scholars. This occurred because the discipline has come to self-‐awareness, especially in the contemporary age, when, following the example of the Galilean revoluLon, the community of mathemaLcians and scholars of mechanics oriented his aYenLon to the problems of shipbuilding and vessel operaLons, which at first seemed disciplines entrusted only to the skill of the shipwright, carpenters and the Masters and Shipmasters [Elias, 2010] on board ships, as well as to the wisdom of tradiLon.

The Entry of History in Naval Science MASSIMO CORRADI

DiparLmento di Scienze per l’ArchiteYura – Università degli Studi di Genova




Grande ordonnance de la marine d'août 1681 (Ordonnance de Colbert).

Even for shipbuilding, in fact, the sedimentaLon of knowledge of the past passed down orally by the shipwright to their students and then taught in the schools of Naval Engineering in France desired and founded by Jean-‐BapLste Colbert (1619 – 1683). Colbert, Secretary of the French Navy in the seventeenth century, has been able to point the way to address and solve staLc and structural problems, but also those related to material behaviour and then, thanks to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, those relaLng to navigaLon and manoeuvring of vessels.


StarLng from the Architectura navalis [1629] by Joseph FurYenbach (1591-‐1667), conLnuing with L’Architecture Navale [1677] by François Dassie (XVII cent.), to get to the mature works of Bernard Renau d’Éliçagaray (1652 -‐ 1719) [1690], Pierre Bouguer (1698 -‐ 1758) [1746; 1753; 1757], Charles Romme (1745 -‐ 1805) [1787], not to menLon that some of the most well-‐known scholars, and finally arrive at the fundamental work of Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700 -‐ 1782) on Architecture and construcLon of naval vessels [1752], the treaLses of Naval Architecture, construcLon and manoeuvring of the vessels, associated with the early studies of mechanics and hydrodynamics [Bernoulli, 1738], have traced the basics of the Arts of shipbuilding and seamanship.



Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau



Crone, Ernst; Dijksterhuis, E. J.; Forbes, R. J. et al. (eds.). The Principal Works of Simon Stevin. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1955–1966.


Euler was « the first ... to express mathema&cally the resistance mee&ng a ship on its path through the water » and « Leonhard Euler first explained the role of pressure in fluid flow; formulated basic equa&ons of mo&on and the so-‐called Bernoulli theorem; introduced the concept of cavita&on, and the principle of centrifugal machinery » [Rouse and Ince, 1957].

The Euler number (En) is a dimensionless number used in fluid flow calculaLons; the CavitaIon number (Cn) is a dimensionless number used in flow calculaLons.

En =pu −pd

ρV2(((((Cn =

p−pv

12ρV2

ρ is the density of the fluid pu is the upstream pressure pd is the downstream pressure p is the local pressure pv is the vapor pressure of the fluid V is a characterisLc velocity of the flow




Today, however, it is desirable to happen a significant change of course; those who are paid more for fronLer research should perceive that a genuine advancement of physical and mathemaLcal sciences, as well as structural in the naval field, but perhaps especially in the nauLcal one, must not only be a unoriginal exercise das rechnende Denken, as MarLn Heidegger cites (1889 -‐ 1976), but require an intense effort to return to the speculaLve principles, and thus feel their deep meaning, their epistemological status, their unspoken or unmenLoned values.

Bouguer, Metacentrum. Pierre Bouguer. Traité du navire, de sa construc&on et de ses

mouvemens. Paris: chez Jombert, 1746.


The need to formulate plausible interpretaLons of the mechanical behaviour of structures and materials, research processes and methods of calculaLon, of which calls for a simplificaLon of the designer’s intuiLon to bring awareness to calculate, must consLtute the essenLal support that is needed combine with the historical knowledge in a conLnuous sedimentaLon of theoreLcal findings, technical developments and technological processes, which, however, is precisely the object of study of historians.



Charles Romme. L'Art de la marine, ou principes et préceptes généraux de l'art de construire et d'armer les vaisseaux. Paris: chez Barrois, 1787.


Suddenly it became clear, therefore, that the Naval Science modelled, since the scienLfic-‐educaLonal ‘revoluLon’ occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as an aid to the problems of the new engineering and shipbuilding sectors, should provide appropriate tools and methods to the processes of design and construcLon. Strong knowledge, although remote and oten associated with technical notes now only briefly, was to enable the engineer even more expert in his discipline to formulate design criteria and calculaLon tools beyond just one formal ‘analogy’ for ‘imitaLon’.




As Galileo cites in his Discorsi e dimostrazioni matema&che intorno a due nuove scienze [Galileo, 1638] : « The constant ac&vity which you Vene&ans display in your famous arsenal suggests to the studious mind a large field for inves&ga&on, especially that part of the work which involves mechanics; for in this department all types of instruments and machines are constantly being constructed by many ar&sans, among whom there must be some who, partly by inherited experience and partly by their own observa&ons, have become highly expert and clever in explana&on ». The awareness of their scienLfic knowledge is the best witness of their real ignorance.



G.B. Maffiolev, Pianta dell'Arsenale, 12 maggio 1797 [Museo storico navale, Venezia].




Nicolaas Witsen, Architectura navalis et regimen nau&cum. Amsterdam: Pieter en Joan Blaeu, 1690.

Telesio, Bernardino. De Rerum Natura iuxta propria principia, Liber Primus, & Secundus, denuò edi&. Napoli: Apud Iosephum Cacchium, 1570.

A “paradigm shiK” The history of Naval Science, certainly does not replace the knowledge of the SocraLc docta ignoran&a (learned ignorance), but rather should serve as a moment of reflecLon of the knowledge acquired to facilitate the development of new methods and analyLcal tools for design and calculus, and find in this way itself -‐ juxta propria principia (according to its own principles) -‐ the reasons for its growth.


The history of Naval Science can become connotaLve matrix of a weaving warp and wet, a cloth of empirical intuiLons and scienLfic knowledge, in order to reveal the hidden reasons that pass through the design of a boat, vessel or ship, its structural dimensioning, its technologies and materials, to the shipyard that will lead to its construcLon.



Anonyme. Construc&on des Vaisseaux du Roy, et le nom de toutes les pieces qui y entrent, marquées en la Table par numéro : avec toutes les propor&ons des rangs, leur explica&on, & l' exercice du Canon.

Au Havre de Grace: Chez Jacques Hubault, 1691.


History does not ignore the fundamental contribuLon by mathemaLcians and engineers engaged in research and study of topics related to the technical competences of the naval architect. But as can be seen from Mathesis Universalis pursued by the greatest scienLsts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the architecture and the art of building naval vessels, belong to the great mathemaLcians who founded a discipline, Naval Science, starLng from its roots and its historical knowledge passed down from father to son, from master to apprenLce in the shipyards and in the first naval establishments then, unLl the end of the twenLeth century.



One of the first drawings of a ship. AYributed to MaYhew Baker, circa 1580 [Magdalene College, Pepys Library, Cambridge ( MS2820), fo 8].

This “alphabet of human thoughts” developed by Go{ried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716) his through account of a Mathesis Universalis, a universal system for storing and generaLng knowledge.


The acknowledgement of the important role fulfilled by scienLsts as one of the builders in the construcLon of a boat, a vessel, a ship, it is not a granted contribuLon, and unfortunately it is not enough to understand the inLmate and essenLal process that led the shipwrights in shipbuilding. It is not, in fact, only a valuable contribuLon to certainly firmitas (“art of building”) of naval construcLon, although somewhat collateral, even when extrinsic design, but instead of a moment of scienLfic awareness of an act of intuiLve design that brought to the project by imitaLon of the ship.



Detail of a ship under construcLon. View of the Rochefort shipyard, used for both ships and galleys. Pen and ink drawing, brown and grey wash, watercolour highlights, paper mounted on canvas.

[Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Rochefort, dépôt Bibliothèque municipale, Saintes].


The relaLonship between art and science, between design and construcLon, becomes a means of interpretaLon of a design raLonale that, as shown in the Schopenhauer’s text The World as Will and Representa&on [Schopenhauer 1819], belongs to the world of aestheLcs, as well as the raLonal world. The structural aspect of the construcLon is anything but a side aspect and extrinsic act of design. Since it is based both the aestheLc essence of the work and science, according to the German philosopher, it is then the vehicle and message of beauty.




The structural mechanics and the definiLon of the laws of equilibrium, which gathers into itself the objecLve of structural design, becomes interpreLve paradigm of the new Naval Science, because it leads one to suppose that the acLve and reacLve forces, external acLons and internal tensions are arranged in different parts of the structure in such a way that obey those laws. «But there’s more: during the eighteenth century undoubtedly under the influence of philosophical and metaphysical concep&ons guided by ra&onal op&mism, according to the principles of a cosmological and anthropological teleonomy, emerged the belief that the same laws “du repos et du mouvement des corps” were in their turn subject to a finalis&c universal design, suitable to express the beauty and perfec&on of nature in the “best of all possible worlds”, track worthy of the Supreme Architect» [Benvenuto, 1988].



The Port of Amsterdam: the docks of the Dutch East India Company. Joseph Mulder (1658 -‐ post 1718) [Stadsarchief Amsterdam].


The great project of staLc and mechanical interpretaLon of the laws in terms of final causes, through the “method of maxima and minima”, fully developed with the help of the ‘VariaLonal method and calculus’ then gave clarity to the mathemaLcal formulaLon of the theme inherent balance and stability will be the main topic of Euler’s Scien&a navalis.



Saint Petersburg 1826


History of Naval Science is sLll a fronLer land, not very sLmulaLng for the students of the history of science, and somewhat difficult for scholars of the history of shipbuilding, but certainly criLcal to understand the paradigm shit that involved the world of technology, not relegated to only the most technical and design note of the shipyard, which as we have said, has for centuries based its manufacturing capacity in imitaLon, but open to educaLon and to teaching, the definiLon of operaLonal tools such as ‘plans construcLon’, with the birth of the Schools of naval engineering.



Marine. On entend par ce mot tout ce qui a rapport au service de la mer, soit pour la navigation, la construction des vaisseaux, & le commerce maritime ; soit par rapport aux corps des officiers

militaires, & ceux employés pour le service des ports, arsenaux & armées navales : ainsi cet article renvoie à une infinité d’autres qui regardent les différentes parties de la marine.


Here the contribuLon of the engineer-‐mathemaLcian, or mathemaLcian-‐ engineer, master of his discipline, and therefore ready to penetrate between the old maps bristled with calculaLons and discouraging geometric construcLons has proved invaluable. Exploring the science of “build vessels” of Galilean memory, as stated in his opening words to Discorsi [Galileo 1638] before, through and ater the “paradigm shit” of which we have menLoned, is no longer a marginal contribuLon to the history of shipbuilding, as far as the heart of a crucial event that has changed the face of the “arte del fabbricare navigli” (“art of build vessels”).



Plate I from Falconer, William, (1732 – 1769). An universal dic&onary of the marine, or, A copious explana&on of the technical terms and phrases employed in the construc&on, equipment, furniture, machinery, movements, and military opera&ons of a ship : to which is annexed, a transla&on of the French sea-‐terms and phrases, collected

from the works of Mess. de Hamel, Aubin, Laverien, &c. by William Falconer.


“A perfect intelligence” Awareness, as Aristotle wrote, that “considering things in their genesis, you get a perfect intelligence” comes from deep reasons who invest the fundamental principles of the disciplines of interest the naval engineer; disciplines ranging from mechanics to hydrostaLc and to hydrodynamic, shipbuilding, science and structural engineering, mechanics of materials, mechanics of solids and structures, etc. « ... each shipbuilding -‐ can be regarded as a physical object completely describable and explicable by the scien&st, if -‐ and only if -‐ is known unequivocally its design configura&on ».



FurYenbach, Joseph. Architectura navalis. Ulm: J. Saur, 1629.


The structural analysis belongs by right to the riverbed of the Naturwissenschaaen and therefore is based on data currently ascertained experimentally. It then makes use of the laws that govern the mechanical behaviour of the bodies, and you do not see what role can exercise the knowledge of the past history that can govern the design of the present object, if not as useful, but accidental support. In no way, this implies the introducLon of the history of scienLfic analysis, nor assumes strange interweaving thinking “nomotheLc” characterisLc of the natural sciences and the intenLon “idiographic” always shielded by the veil of interpretaLon, which concerns the historical sciences out, in the Geisteswissenschaaen. More simply, it is beYer to fix instead of the ini&al data which, together with the boundary condi&ons, define the physical-‐mathemaLcal problem, so as to ensure the existence and uniqueness of the soluLon.



Dassié, François. L’Architecture Navale: avec le Rou&er des Indes Orientales & Occidentales: Par le Sieur Dassié. Paris: Jean de la Caille, 1677.


Among the essenLal principles of scienLfic disciplines that are a priori of ship design is in fact a convincing image “asymptoLc” of the structural descripLon and explanaLon, according to which, any answer offered by the engineer is valid since he enrolled in the narrow path of achievements approximate, because that is how you present prolepsis anLcipaLon of a perfect soluLon whose existence is ensured by the universal principle of physical determinism.



Robert Benard: “Marine”, Encyclopedie Methodique. Paris: Panckoucke, 1787.


Suppose the objecLve existence of a perfect soluLon but unaYainable within a design process, which can be more “secularly” define infinite laboratory, able to go from the beginning to the end of a route can only descripLve-‐explanatory sight distance and wholesale the soluLon searched, trying to make sense and measure the results actually achieved by the limited cogniLve instruments of our knowledge, interpreLng them as approxima&ons, more or less accurate, the true solu&on.



Eggers, Jakob von . Neues Kriegs-‐, Ingenieur-‐, Ar&llerie-‐, See-‐ und Floeen-‐Lexikon. Dresden und Leipzig, G.C. Walther, 1757.


Conclusions The indefinable number of factors that are put in place, the insurmountable difficulty of the experiment, the uncertainty that remains in any theoreLcal model designed to represent the inherent non-‐linearity of the materials, the incidence of aspects may be captured only by consideraLons of probability, lead us to think that not even in principle be apparent via a “ontologically” determined, ater which shines forth the true goal of the soluLon.




In this sense, our case is not much (or only) complicated, but rather complex. The first term is appropriate for those intricate problems and perhaps unaYainable, but for which you can configure, at least in the abstract, solving paradigms, while the second term is applied to those other problems that defy any paradigm.



The soluLon thus remains contained in the un-‐decidable act of design, be it aestheLc and engineering, but the act of design is the history of the Lme that has been designed and built, and over the years will be slowly forgoYen. But the soluLons proposed, designed and implemented should not belong to the world of the past, but as soluLons to problems or comprehensive answers to the quesLons asked should be collected and narrated as a key tool for growth and development of the knowledge of the discipline.




Great Harry, as reproduced in The Anthony Roll of Henry VIII’s Navy.

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