Galileo’s Discovery of a New Sky and of a New Physics on the Earth
Seminars
Laboratory Seminar
Date and Time: Tuesday, 26 September 2017, at 3:00 PM
Venue: Conference Hall (2nd floor), Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics
Seminar topic: «Galileo’s Discovery of a New Sky and of a New Physics on the Earth»
Speaker: William R. Shea (Galileo Professor of History of Science, University of Padova (ret.))
Abstract:
The speaker will present the astronomical discoveries of Galileo made with the telescope of his own conception described in his epoch making Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1610), a book which marked the beginning of the new Astronomy. A new Physics is exposed In Galileo’s last book, Two New Sciences, published in 1638, based on research done starting from his youth in Pisa and Padova. Galileo discovered a New Earth on the sky (the Moon has mountains and valleys, like our Earth) and new laws of Physics, allowing later the Newtonian Synthesis.