h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A59770902 - Galileo Galilei – Father of Modern Science

Hi Elentari

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At the time only six planets were known, and only one moon, our own. When moons were discovered encircling Jupiter, it proved the Earth was just one of many planets instead of being at the centre of things like the Bible taught.

During a trial which last three weeks he did recant - there seems to be a word or two missing there.

I've still to deal with Shagbark's Pope posting

What do you intend to do with the Pope once he's delivered, GB

Shagbark: a new section "Rehabilitation"
near the end

Some parts have been rewritten to make them clearer (I hope)

I think this entry is well constructed - it makes for a very satisfying read.


Here is a link for the "Sector"
http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/sector.html

(It turns out that I was unfamiliar with the sector - I assumed it was for drawing.)

and here's a link for the Pendulum (gratuitous, of course)
A39426465

(warning - a useless and non PR comment immediately follows this pointless warning)
"but he was presented with a gold chain for a good attempt"
Since this in reference to the Longitude Problem - it would have been very ironic if the consolation prize had been a watch

Terrific

ahh but the gold chain could be used for checking a prendulum effect.

Done thanks paily

I'll try and have a read through this later, GB. On a quick glance I have to take issue with one thing I read: Galileo never dropped anything off the Tower of Pisa. That's a myth.

I thought it was a myth myself, but I was asked to include it (or at least, told I'd omitted it) by Deke: F41297?thread=4594155&latest=1 post 582

Well, my book on Newton says about Galileo:

He wasn't the first to observe the moon through a telescope, that was Thomas Harriott.

He wasn't the first to observe the moons of Jupiter, that was Simon Mayr.

He wasn't the first to observe the Andromeda Galaxy, that was von Greenhausen.

He wasn't the first to see sunspots, that was Christoph Scheiner.

But he did CLAIM to be the first to do all these things.

I've rewritten that part

I haven't researched the claims in my last post, I'm just reporting what was in the book. But I have a book about Thomas Harriott, so I can look into that at least.

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He wasn't the first to observe the moon through a telescope, that was Thomas Harriott.
I agree. I've changed "He was able to study the surface of the Moon in intimate detail for the first time in human history." to "He was able to study the surface of the Moon in intimate detail."
He wasn't the first to observe the moons of Jupiter, that was Simon Mayr.
Simon Mayr the German composer?
He wasn't the first to observe the Andromeda Galaxy, that was von Greenhausen.
I haven't mentioned the Andromeda Galaxy at all in my entry
He wasn't the first to see sunspots, that was Christoph Scheiner.
I haven't said he was the first, I have said he studied sunspots
But he did CLAIM to be the first to do all these things.
I am not sure what you want me to say in answer to that

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I know, I posted it to you, I have the same book.

It wasn't a criticism of your entry, it was just something interesting my book said about Galileo which I thought you might find useful as information about the man.

By Simon Mayr, they mean Simon Marius, by the way.

>>Galileo might not have been the first man to use a telescope to gaze into outer space, but he was certainly the first to accurately record his sightings<<

What really distinguished Galileo from all of his contemporaries was the simple fact that he made very accurate records of his sightings, which allowed him to deduce all kinds of interesting things. This is what is conveyed by sentence above. Marius, who I think did see the moons before Galileo, made poor sketches that were of no real use, apparently.

As to claiming to be first in all of the most important discoveries of the day, well, Galileo was a professor after all, and this trait is important if you're going to get anywhere at all in academia

One source says Galileo objected to not being considered first: see what you make of this. Since Marius did not publish any observations, as Galileo had done in his Sidereus Nuncius, it is impossible to verify Marius's claim. His reputation was, however, not the highest. Galileo responded to Marius's claim in his Assayer of 1623. He began by complaining about those who had tried to steal his inventions and then took aim at Marius:

Of such usurpers I might name not a few, but I shall pass them over now in silence, as it is customary for first offenses to receive less severe punishment than subsequent ones. But I shall not remain silent any longer about a second offender who has tried too audaciously to do me the very same thing which he did many years ago by appropriating the invention of my geometric compass, despite the fact that I had many years previously shown it and discussed it before a large number of gentlemen and had finally made it public in print. May I be pardoned this if, against my nature, my habit, and my present intentions--I show resentment and cry out, perhaps with too much bitterness, about a thing which I have kept to myself these many years. I speak of Simon Marius of Gunzenhausen; he it was in Padua, where I resided at the time, who set forth in Latin the use of the said compass of mine and, appropriating it to himself, had one of his pupils print this under his name. Forthwith, perhaps to escape punishment, he departed immediately for his native land, leaving his pupil in the lurch as the saying goes; and against the latter, in the absence of Simon Marius, I was obliged to proceed in the manner which is set forth in the Defense which I then wrote and published. Four years after the publication of my Sidereal Messenger, this same fellow, desiring as usual to ornament himself with the labors of others) did not blush to make himself the author of the things I had discovered and printed in that work. Publishing under the title of The Jovian World, he had the temerity to claim that he had observed this Medicean planets which revolve about Jupiter before I had done so. But because it rarely happens that truth allows herself to be suppressed by falsehood, you may see how he himself, through his carelessness and lack of understanding, gives me in that very work of his the means of convicting him by irrefutable testimony and revealing unmistakably his error, showing not only that he did not observe the said stars before me but even that he did not certainly see them until two years afterwards; and I say moreover that it may be affirmed very probably that he never observed them at all.[2]

the same source
http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/marius.html
says Marius had documentation of sighting Jupiter's moons in December 1610. Galileo had documented sightings in January 1610.

Thank you, although I dealt with all that in my History of the Galilean Moons entry (awaiting a sub-ed) or at least I thought I had