Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume II

380 Your Excellency’s most humble, devoted and obliged servant Giuseppe Tartini Padua, 3 November 1752 105. Tartini to G.B. Martini At last, after so much time, the crux of the difficulty has been discovered, and Your Reverence’s last letter makes it quite clear. But may God be thanked, as in order to finally complete this business, this was so necessary that we could have debated for years without ever understanding each other, if this had not happened. Here, then, is precisely where we have not understood each other. The Most Illustrious Signor Dottor Balbi and Your Reverence write to me these precise words after having granted to me the phenomenon of the third sound as a law of nature etc. I have always believed, and still believe, that this fact and this experience is the main foundation, around which the claimed demonstration of the squaring of the circle revolves. Therefore the physical shall be one thing, the demonstrative another thing, that is to say, one thing is the foundation of the demonstration, and another the demonstration itself. From this one hopes not to make a mistake when one says that we separate the physical from the demonstrative, even though the foundation is separable from the operation. The reason for such a separation is not peculiar to this case, but universal in every physical demonstration; setting up an experiment, that is, to then demonstrate something else. Up to here the words are copied from the letter, and I repeat the underlined. The physical is one thing, the demonstrative another thing. In my case this is not true; it is the same thing. We separate the physical from the demonstrative. In my case it is physically, and demonstratively, impossible. Universal in every physical demonstration is the setting up of an experiment to then demonstrate something else. What happens, I do not know, nor do I care what, or how it is done. In my case the setting up of the experiment is the same as the demonstration. Here is then how far we were from understanding each other, and whether it was ever possible to get to the bottom of it. Moreover, I have insisted on this point as much as I was able to and could; but to no avail, as I can see now. I shall then see in this letter if I can manage better than in the past, to make you understand the inseparability. If I succeed, I am sure I have won the dispute. If I do not succeed, it will not be a sign of the falsity of my proposition, but a manifest sign of my inability to make myself understood. Therefore we have finally arrived at the completion of the examination. Because if you understand me, you will