Galileo's Handwritten Notes Discovered in a Medieval Astronomy Text (science.org) 25
In a library in Florence, Italy, historian Ivan Malara noticed handwritten notes on a book printed in the 1500s — and recognized the handwriting as Galileo's. The finding "promises new insights into one of the most famous ideological transitions in the history of science," writes Science magazine — since the book Galileo annotated was a reprint of Ptolemy's second-century work arguing that the earth was the center of the universe.
Galileo's notes, perhaps written around 1590, or roughly 2 decades before his groundbreaking telescope observations of the Moon and Jupiter, reveal someone who both revered and critically dissected Ptolemy's work. And they imply, Malara argues, that Galileo ultimately broke with Ptolemy's cosmos because his mastery of the traditional paradigm's reasoning convinced him that a heliocentric [sun-centered] system would better fulfill Ptolemy's own mathematical logic.
No one is right about everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Science and new discoveries are rife with the tenet of assuming nothing done previously is canonic, but using the prior work to expand knowledge and understanding.
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This "platitude" is the thrust of the article you chose to open, read, and reply to the comments on. What were you expecting to find here? Whatever you're looking for is probably on Facebook.
Re: No one is right about everything (Score:2)
I'm glad that even science has groupies.
Re:No one is right about everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Galileo's case is, obviously, one of a system that veered too close to being declared The Truth; clearly you've got a problem when academic astronomy will get you hassled by the pope; but it's also a case of astronomy being comparatively mature and functional as a 'scientific' endeavor; and Ptolomaic theory ultimately cracking up under the weight of centuries of carefully collected observations that became increasingly hard to square with the number of deferents and epicycles and things needed to construct a Ptolomaic model that agreed with the observed sky. The Ptolomaic model was, as it happens, totally wrong(as was the Copernican one; heliocentrism with perfect circles rather than Kepler's elliptical orbits gets really gross really fast once you start adding the complications needed to square it with observations); but as an example of science at work astronomy was a more or less enormous success at achieving an ongoing research program that generated empirical results that ultimately both demanded the development of better theoretical models and were conveniently ready and waiting for the people who worked on creating those models.
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Parallax problem (Score:2)
The Heliocentric Theory had a problem with a negative result for the parallax of stars. Think of it as the Michelson-Morley result of its day.
This is why Tycho Brahe rejected the Copernican interpretation, the best observational astronomer of his day--he couldn't measure any shift in stellar positions as the Earth went around the Sun. No one had the imagination that the nearest stars were so freakin' far away.
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It's not really knowledge until enough evidence is gathered to back a predictive model. You can know the Earth orbits the Sun all you want, but you don't know it sufficiently well to teach it as fact until you can do the math and observations match prediction.
Even then, you have to apply Occam's Razor because there were some extremely complicated geocentric models where the math could work too. If your model isn't the simplest one that works, it's probably not the correct model.
So sure, science and new di
This fake historical garbage again? (Score:5, Informative)
Galileo didn't discover heliocentrism.
1517 Martin Luther publishes the Ninety-Five Theses. The Protestant Reformation begins decades before Galileo’s conflict and reshapes the religious and political environment of Europe.
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus, a canon lawyer and church administrator, publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
This work introduces the mathematical heliocentric model. The term “Copernican system” comes from this publication.
Copernicus dies the same year.
1570s Church scholars recognize that the Julian calendar has drifted relative to the equinox. Because Easter depends on the lunar cycle relative to the equinox, the error creates theological and practical problems.
1578–1580 Pope Gregory XIII commissions astronomical work to correct the calendar and builds the Vatican observatory tower, often called the Gregorian Tower or Tower of the Winds, to support observations. The tower still exists today.
1582 The Gregorian calendar is promulgated after roughly a decade of astronomical and mathematical work led largely by Jesuit scholars such as Christopher Clavius.
This reform demonstrates that the Catholic Church was actively funding and conducting astronomical research decades before Galileo.
1609–1610 Galileo uses the telescope for astronomical observation and publishes Sidereus Nuncius.
He observes the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, discoveries that undermine the traditional Ptolemaic geocentric system but do not uniquely prove heliocentrism over competing models such as Tycho Brahe’s system.
1616 The Roman Inquisition rules that heliocentrism may not be taught as physical truth.
Copernicus’s book is not banned outright but is suspended until minor corrections are made.
Galileo is instructed not to defend heliocentrism as fact.
1623 Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who had previously been sympathetic to Galileo, becomes Pope Urban VIII. Galileo initially believes he has papal support.
1632 Galileo publishes Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems).
The book is written as a Socratic dialogue comparing geocentrism and heliocentrism and clearly favors the Copernican position.
The work cites Copernicus directly and does not claim to invent heliocentrism.
Arguments associated with the Pope appear in the mouth of the character Simplicio, which is perceived in Rome as insulting. (calling the pope "simple" or stupid)
Galileo claims proof based on his theory of tides, which is incorrect.
He rejects Kepler’s already published elliptical orbits and insists on circular orbits.
At this time, heliocentrism was still debated scientifically. Many astronomers preferred the Tychonic system because stellar parallax had not yet been observed.
1633 Galileo is tried by the Roman Inquisition and found “vehemently suspected of heresy.”
He is required to recant and is sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.
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A fake version of history surrounding "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" is the basis for the anime "Orb".
Catholic priests, monks, or nuns also invented or discovered genetics, the primordial atom (Which was written off as an effort to invent creation/intelligent design as "the Big Bang"), the pendulum clock, the electric motor, the electric battery, and for some reason the bulletproof vest, among dozens of other inventions that make life possible.
Ok fine, while the Church was at it, we cured Malaria sav
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Cured malaria? On what planet? The Asian people were using quinine for centuries before Jesuit missionaries arrived. They just taught Europeans, to the detriment of the rest of the world.
Not fake historical garbage (Score:3)
Galileo didn't discover heliocentrism.
The summary does not state nor imply that Galileo discovered heliocentrism.
He most definitely did contribute to "one of the most famous ideological transitions in the history of science" — the transition to the Copernican view of the solar system, which is exactly what the summary credits him with: "his groundbreaking telescope observations of the Moon and Jupiter."
Oh, and the transition to the Gregorian calendar has nothing to do with the shift from the Ptolemaic to Copernican view of the solar syst
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The calendar transition is necessary to understand to put Galileo's bullshit into a proper historical context.
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The calendar transition is necessary to understand to put Galileo's bullshit into a proper historical context.
If you believe that Galileo's work was "bullshit", I have no ability to talk to you because we have no common ground.
With the benefit of modern hindsight (Score:2)
I'd love to go back in time with a mechanical device to rotate a large stick with a transverse hole drilled through it. Put a string through the hole and two different weights, affixed to each end of the string. You can find a balance point where they spin without the string slipping towards the heavier weight.
That could demonstrate the concept of the barycenter and how different masses should orbit each other. It's not gravity, obviously, but it could communicate the idea. Combine that with gravity, a
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Cursive (Score:2)
This is why I dont write cursive, 400 years from now when people find my writings they'll be able to read it and easily figure out what I was saying.
Hmm, maybe I should write in cursive.
This is awesomeness! (Score:2)
Consider the timeframes.
Start with Galileo reading and making notes in a book in the 15th century. That
But the book is a REPRINT of a 2ND CENTURY book by Ptolemy. He's look at it 1,300 years after "publication"!
And he's writing in it!
And here we are, hundreds of years later, finding it.
Nice (Score:2)
So now we know several things:
1. Galileo disfigured books, our friends, by writing in them.
2. He couldn't afford a first edition.
3.There are people who recognize the handwriting of people who died half a millennium ago.
Margins (Score:1)
Hang on, what's this in the margin of page 17?! (Score:2)
"Expecta, intellego, mundus revera planus est" or "Hang on, I get it, the world is actually flat" !
Yep, it's just like the Bible told us.
We've had it wrong all these years !
Embarrassiiiing.