Birth of Galileo

Thanks, I have finished college and written my paper on this several months ago.

I gve my first talk on Galileo in Dunsink observatory on Monday evening. This talk will also be presented in Tullamore on December 4th, 8pm Tullamore Presbyterian Hall.

moro.imss.fi.it:9000/struts-aig/primoIngresso.do#&lingua=

galileo.rice.edu/

I found both these websites useful, its a huge subject.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society

Deirdre - you didn't by any chance read Galileo's Daughter (Dava Sobel)? Good read so far - I've yet to finish it.

Are there living descendents of Galileo ??

Galileo’s daughter is a great read, a great overview. Letters to Father by Dava Sobal is also a very revelling incite into Galileo’s life via his daughters eloquent writing.

I think I enjoyed reading Siderius Nuncius or Starry Messenger by Galileo, its very honest and very clear.

I am sure he must have living relatives as his son Vincenzio married and had several children; it would be unfortunate if such a great man’s genealogy had not continued.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society

I am sure he must have living relatives as his son Vincenzio married and had several children; it would be unfortunate if such a great man’s genealogy had not continued.

On a related issue. Giovanni de Casinni was "poached" by the Observariore de Paris for his observing and lens making prowess. In the literature one finds poor old Giovanni disappears- only to be replaced by Jean-Dominique Cassiniso - one might think it is a different fellow!
Abregé des observations & des reflexions sur la comete qui a paru au mois de decembre 1680, & aux mois de ianvier, fevrier, & mars de cette anneé 1681 - Cassini, Jean-Dominique. 1625-1712

From : sigb.obspm.fr/cgi/index.pl

If you look you will see they even back date the Giovanni books!

Try doing that with Galileo. Hah!

Casinni - also educated by Jesuits - Given an appointment by Pope Alexander VII and let go by Clement IX who relented to French king Louis XV as he was told the appointment was temporary. Within two years he was French.


www.obspm.fr/histoire/paris/cassini.fr.shtml

The family are still around paris AFAIK From the above source you can see up to Alexandre Henri-Gabriel, vicomte de Cassini (1781-1832)
a botanist but Casinni#'s ran the observatoire from 1671 to 1793!

Coming into the 18th century you have the "Picard and Richer" (i kid you not) expedition which led to measuring the curvature of the earth. I think they began measuring a degree on the surface of the Earth. Paris and London were argung about who got the Prime Meridian at the time. Greenwhich eventually got it. But paris measured a degree on the surface. Then they went to Lapland! A real ripping yearn boy scout adventure.

Anyway, if Newtons theory was tright the curvature wouldf be flatter at the poles. if Decartes "vortex theory"the curvature would be the other way and the meridan degree longer. Newton was not very well known in France even a century after the Principa. I think a lover of Voltaire Hortence Lepaut (another interesting charachter who Le Gentile of missed Transis of Venus fame was besotted with and named a flower brought back form India after her Hortensia in French - Hydrangia english) translated Newton into french. And being a savant at maths used The notation form the German Libnetz who also discovered calculus.

Leibniz was very conscious that finding a good notation was of fundamental importance and thought a lot about it. Newton, on the other hand, wrote more for himself and, as a consequence, tended to use whatever notation he thought of on the day. Leibniz's notation of d and highlighted the operator aspect which proved important in later developments. By 1675 Leibniz had settled on the notation Leibniz learnt much on a European tour which led him to meet Huygens in Paris in 1672. (He also met Hooke and Boyle in London in 1673. On returning to Paris Leibniz did some very fine work on the calculus, thinking of the foundations very differently from Newton. )

Anyway I digress. But it is history of astronomy nonetheless.

Infallible Apologies
James Warner

“Galileo”

“John Paul II appears to have been motivated largely by a desire to clear
The Church’s name rather than to make amends with Galileo’s memory.

I dispute this. For some time the Church has been up to date on the geo kenetic, heliocentric theory.

The pope’s statement made no mention of the Inquisitors’ treatment of the
69-year-old astronomer, which included a forced recantation under threat
of torture and death and denial of medical care during his imprisonment.

More like "house arrest" on a large country estate! Hardly imprisionement!

Instead, the pope had urged the commission to discover “the wrongs, from
whatever side they may have come” and deemed the affair a “tragic mutual
incomprehension” between Galileo and “theologians of that age,” who could
not reconcile heliocentrism and scripture.

The "pope" above is not Pope JP II. The Church could indeed resolve the problem and were aware of the Tychonic System. The Jusuits (an order later disbanded and then still later reinstated) were at least. A Jusuit, Schiner, who Galileo had got on the wrong side of 15 years before was the scientific advisor to the Inquisition.

Also Galileo did not fall out so much with the Pope or the Chursh so much as the Peripathetic philosophers of the day! Those that insisted Aristotle was correct. I'm sure Aristotle himself would have listened to Galileo but the Aristotlean School were having none of it!

Since Galileo could deduce but
not prove that the earth moved around the sun, the commission found
that both parties had acted in good faith; to the pope, the investigation
showed that a belief in the “fundamental opposition between science and
faith . . . now belongs in the past”.

In fact I would challenge you to disprove the geostatic geocentric Tychonic system even today using only evidence and instruments from that time (telescopic observation not allowed). Galileo had promised the earlier Inquisition (in 1615?) that he would shut up already! But galileo broke hios word and published and spread his word to the people and was biased in favour of his own theory in spite of claiming he was "balancing " the debate.