Talk:Themistius

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Friction[edit]

I have an older physics textbook that contains the following quote:

Fishbane, Paul M.; Gasiorowicz, Stephen; Thornton, Stephen T. (1993). Physics for Scientists and Engineers. Vol. I (Extended ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p. 135. ISBN 0-13-663246-7. Themistius first stated around 350 B.C. that kinetic friction is weaker than the maximum value of static friction.

It appears that they got the date wrong (and should be 350 A.D.) and that this mistake is common at least among sources of the time. (A difference of about 700 years!) For instance the book

Panjkovic, Vladimir (2014). Friction and the Hot Rolling of Steel. CRC Press. ISBN 9781482205916.

on page 13 gives two other examples that make the same mistake including one source from 1992. The same book, by the way, quotes a 2003 work by Hecht that gives the rather lovely Themistius quote on friction that "Generally, it is easier to further the motion of a moving body than to move a body at rest".

If it's true that this article's Themistius and that one are the same (and it appears to be the case) then Themistius was rather important scientifically and his work on friction is very notable. The article does not even mention friction at the moment. I assume it was in his book on physics but we should endeavor to add a section on friction. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:40, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]