Giambattista Benedetti

Giambattista (Gianbattista) Benedetti (14 August 1530 – 20 January 1590) was an Italian mathematician from Venice who was also interested in physics, mechanics, the construction of sundials, and the science of music.

[1] In his works Resolutio omnium Euclidis problematum (1553)[2] and Demonstratio proportionum motuum localium (1554),[3] Benedetti proposed a new doctrine of the speed of bodies in free fall.

[1][4] In a second edition of the Demonstratio (also 1554), he extended this theory to include the effect of the resistance of the medium, which he said was proportional to the cross section or the surface area of the body.

[6] This is considered a piece of plagiarism, as Taisnier presents, as though his own, the Epistola de magnete of Peter of Maricourt and the second edition of Benedetti's Demonstratio.

In the same letter, he proposed a measure of consonance by taking the product of the numerator and the denominator of a rational interval in lowest terms; this can be considered an early height function.