From anomaly to fundament: Louis Poinsot's theories of the couple in mechanics (Q2436781)

For a long time in statics, couples, pairs of coplanar parallel forces equal in magnitude and opposite in sense, were treated as anomalies. In 1803, Louis Poinsot published a textbook on statics in which couples were given a serious treatment. Starting with the third edition of his textbook in 1821, Poinsot applied his theory of couples to dynamics in general. Remarkable is, for example, his 1852 paper in which he showed that the motion of a rigid body about a fixed point is always a rolling motion: a cone in the body rolls without slipping on a fixed cone. This is a nice illustration of Poinsot's geometrical thinking in mechanics. It is also a nice example of a kinematical result that was born in a dynamical context. The author discusses the reception of Poinsot's work and he concludes that a rehabilitation is desired. According to the author not only Poinsot's contemporaries but historians of statics too have insufficiently appreciated the value of Poinsot's work.