Galileo and the language of science

Galileo's observing notes for 1610 begin in Italian. Clearly he is writing little memos for his own interest. He discovered the moons of Jupiter on 7 January 1610 he switched to Latin after 12 January. Latin of course was the language used by all savants, natural philosophers, and mathematicians until the end of the 18th century. Copernicus, Mewton, and Descartes wrote in Latin in order to reach an international audience. Galileo wrote books in Italian and Latin. For example, the famous Dialogue of the Two World systems, published in 1632, and which directly led to his trial in 1633, was Italian because he wished to reach a wide lay audience in his home country. The Starry Message (Sidereus Nuncius) published in 1610 is in Latin because it contained revolutionary ideas, and he wanted to reach an international readership of natural philosophers. In terms of the history of science communication, Galileo is remarkable because he writes popular stuff in Italian and serious stuff in Latin

For a modern take on communicating the new astronomy to a variety of audiences see http://bit.ly/TOTast

Interested in Sidereus Nuncius? Buy it here

Galileo has observed Jupiter's moons for two weeks

400 years ago tonight marks the first two weeks of Galileo's observations of Jupiter's four moons. By now he has seen the moons play hide and seek many times -- going into and emerging from eclipse by the giant planet Jupiter. He is absolutely convinced that the moons are part of Jupiter's system. However, in his observing notes he is not yet speculating about what his observations indicate. He's demonstrating great restraint. His notes show excellent observation of the application of the scientific method: observe, acquire data of the highest quality, write it all down

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Galileo sees all four again

15 January 1610. Galileo can't wait for evening twilight. He was clouded out last night, but tonight, three hours after sunset, he points his spyglass at Jupiter once again and sees all four of the companions, all to the west of Jupiter. Four hours later ('the seventh hour', after midnight) the visible companions are three in number. He stays up another hour and spies two of the companions in conjunction

I keep having toremind myself that the diagrawms in Sidereus Nuncius are the telescope view, which is inverted -- east is right and west is left in Galileo's thumbnails

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Galileo sees four moons for the first time

Yesterday, minus 400 years, on 13 January 1610, Galileo saw all four moons of Jupiter for the first time. He wrote that all four were of the same magnitude and far outshone the background field stars

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Galileo sees a star 'appear' while observing Jupiter

So the next night, 400 years ago tonight, Galileo looks at Jupiter one hour after sunset. He can see two bright stars parellel to the ecliptic, one east of Jupiter and one to the west. A couple of hours later he spies a third object, quite dim, 'almost touching Jupiter'. By now he realises that he is making a discovery of momentous importance

He gets a new surprise the next day.

Stay tuned by following this blog. I will be covering Galileo's observations through to early March 1610. All blogs will be concise. Comments on the blog aare most welcome


Simon Mitton
http://bit.ly/TOTast

Galileo realises that he has discovered worlds orbiting Jupiter!

Exactly 400 years ago tonight* Galileo sees two stars to the east of Jupiter, one of which is twice as bright as last night. This is the night on which he is amazed to accept that the only explanation of his observations is "I have now accepted without the shadow of doubt that there were in the heavens three stars wandering about Jupiter, just as Mercury and Venus go round the Sun"

That folks is truly awesome. Having observed Jupiter on just four nights he reaches the correct conclusion that the Copernican system applies to Jupiter just as it applies to the Sun

Source of this information is a new translation of Sidereus Nuncius http://bit.ly/7WsibK

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Galileo is now completely baffled

So, last night, 9 January 1610, Galileo was clouded out. 400 years ago tonight it was clear in Venice, so he turned his 20x power spyglass to Jupiter once more. He can see only two starlets! One has disappeared or is hiding. At this stage he cannot figure out what's happening. Remember, he has only three observations, and his telescope does not have setting circles or anything fancy like that. With three observations spanning just four nights he cannot yet rule out the weird possibility that there is something irregular about Jupiter's motion, an irregularity that would not be detectable to a naked eye astronomer. He's also intrigued by the fact that these unpredictable starlets are on a line parallel to the ecliptic. He actually calls them big stars because they seem so bright through his telescope.

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I have an interview about Galileo's discoveries of 1610 with BBC Radio 4 coming in February. I am interested in further commissions / talks / science writing