Galileo’s telescopes: Seeing is believing (2010) | Hacker News Reader

Galileo’s telescopes: Seeing is believing (2010)

historytoday.com

34 pointshhs12 comments

This claim from the article is too extreme: "It is safe to say that prior to 1610 not a single significant scientific argument had turned on a question of fact."

Just in astronomy alone, in the previous century Tycho Brahe was debating against the Copernican models, with his own hybrid model where most of the planets orbit the sun, but the sun orbits the earth. Facts about which model predicted the location of what planets were really important.

The book "The Copernican Revolution" by Kuhn is really interesting for anyone curious to know more about this period.

Indeed. The obvious counter-example to the claim is "rainbows" which were definitely the topic of heated scientific argument for hundreds of years (and non-scientific ones before that).

You should read his book. He takes a knife to a lot of the scholarship in History of Science.

An appropriate time to post a photo of a replica Galileo telescope made by my late father.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2cc84vlxe9q8v6ppp6st9/tel.jpg...

And bonus, a replica he made of van Leeuwenhoek's microscope:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gwdb2r71d49pf8m4a5243/micro.j...

This is incredible. Did he ever describe how he made the replicas? How did he know what the originals looked like?

He was a physicist and author with an interest in old technologies. I believe that most of van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes are replicas, but their basic form is well documented. As I recall, the most difficult thing to replicate was the lens, which he made using the same method van Leeuwenhoek's used: dropping molten glass through air.

The telescope was relatively easy in comparison. He used two lens from his stock of lenses and simply mounted them in a tube. I recall him having fun with the decorations, which are quite detailed.

He was so good at making/repairing ancient technology that the Science museum trusted him to repair some of their most precious items from their old wireless collection. He used vintage brass (modern brass looks wrong), vintage ebonite and authenticity old mahogany. Wish I could remember more. I have a few more of his things: a set of Napier's Bones (an old calculation device) made from chop sticks, an reproduction crystal set, a number of orreries.

If you want more (much more) of the author's thoughts on this and related issues, see his book "The Invention of Science" (2016). Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Science-History-Scientific-...

From what I've read, the Vatican observatory bought one of Galileo's scopes, it didn't work very well, they bought an improved one, and confirmed his observations. They also recommended a compromise that had been suggested by Tycho Brahe, where the sun goes around the earth, and the planets go around the sun.

  My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth

via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

A few years ago I pointed out Jupiter in the night sky as I was leaving a friend’s place. He told me to take a closer look with his binoculars and I was stunned: The Galilean moons were unmistakable. I had no idea they could be seen with a simple set of modern binoculars.

Interesting.

There are a few caveats: since modernity is a child of Protestantism, it reproduces all its dogma, and more importantly, all its pretentious self-flattering propaganda.

The church was actually quite open to helio-centric theories - their criticism was infact quite scientific viz. that Copernicus' theory had errors that exceeded prevalent geo-centric ones. The biggest theological attack came from the Protestants (Calvinists and others alike), which pushed the Church into taking a literalist/fundamentalist stance.

Rationalism, Modernism, Liberalism etc., which are children of Protestantism are so invested in their silly pedigree that they'll go to no extent erase their past.

Amusingly, Liberals were amongst the greatest defenders of slavery and colonialism. As were 'rationalists', the greatest defenders of eugenics (and colonialism).

Heidegger for instances saw through all these moronic pretenses, and despises all these idiotic PR attempts for what they really are. Pity, we don't see the deep malaise here since the only philosophy we are taught now is the silly stuff that came out of the Anglo-American world.

"For centuries, the trial of Galileo has received far more attention than any other aspect of his life. The conflict between religion and science still rumbles on in the debates over Darwinism and intelligent design."

To me, it's worse than Dawinism vs intelligent design. Religion is often used to squash inconvenient facts in order to gain/keep control. I never would have thought that in my life time, we'd see this become a major issue instead of just in the smaller niche groups.

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