Hobbes tried to develop a strict version of the mechanical philosophy, in which all physical phenomena were explained only in terms of bodies in motion, and the only forces allowed were forces of collision or impact. This ambition puts Hobbes into a select group of original thinkers, alongside Galileo, Isaac Beeckman, and Descartes. No other early modern thinkers developed a strict version of the mechanical philosophy (not even Newton who allowed forces of attraction and repulsion operating at a distance). Natural philosophies relying solely on bodies in motion require a concept of inertial motion. Beeckman and Descartes assumed rectilinear motions were rectilinear, but Galileo adopted a theory which has been referred to as circular inertia. Hobbes’s natural philosophy depended to a large extent on what he called “simple circular motions.” In this paper, I argue that Hobbes’s simple circular motions derived from Galileo’s belief in circular inertia. The paper opens with a section outlining Galileo’s concept, the following section shows how Hobbes’s physics depended upon circular motions, which are held to continue indefinitely. A third section shows the difficulty Hobbes had in maintaining a strictly mechanistic philosophy, and the conclusion offers some speculations as to why Galileo’s circular inertia was never entertained as a serious rival to rectilinear inertia, except by Hobbes.

中文翻译：

---

霍布斯、伽利略和简单圆周运动的物理学

霍布斯试图发展出严格版的机械哲学，其中所有物理现象都只能用运动物体来解释，唯一允许的力是碰撞力或冲击力。这一雄心使霍布斯与伽利略、艾萨克·贝克曼和笛卡尔一起成为了一个精选的原创思想家。没有其他早期现代思想家开发出严格版本的机械哲学（即使是允许远距离作用力和排斥力的牛顿也没有）。仅依靠运动物体的自然哲学需要惯性运动的概念。贝克曼和笛卡尔假设直线运动是直线运动，但伽利略采用了一种被称为圆惯性的理论。霍布斯的自然哲学在很大程度上依赖于他所谓的“简单圆周运动”。在这篇论文中，我认为霍布斯的简单圆周运动源自伽利略对圆周惯性的信念。论文以概述伽利略概念的一节开始，下一节说明霍布斯的物理学如何依赖于无限期地持续进行的圆周运动。第三部分展示了霍布斯在坚持严格的机械哲学方面遇到的困难，结论提供了一些关于为什么伽利略的圆形惯性从未被视为直线惯性的严重竞争对手的推测，除了霍布斯。