Related papers: Christopher Clavius astronomer and mathematician

When V. M. Slipher gave the 1933 George Darwin lecture to the Royal Astronomical Society, it was natural that he spoke on spectrographic studies of planets. Less than one-sixth of his published work deals with globular clusters and the…

Galileo Galilei believed that stars were distant suns whose sizes, measured via his telescope, were a direct indication of distance -- fainter stars (appearing smaller in the telescope) were farther away than brighter ones. Galileo argued…

The trial and condemnation of Giordano Bruno was mainly based on arguments of philosophical and theological nature, and therefore different from Galilei's. Such elements contribute to unfairly devalue the scientific contribution of Bruno…

Einstein's theory of relativity is largely thought of as one of the most important discoveries of the 20$^{th}$ century and continues to pass observational tests over 100 years later. Yet, it is Newtonian gravity, a 350 year old formalism…

This purely recreational paper is about one of the most colorful characters of the Italian Renaissance, Girolamo Cardano, and the discovery of two basic ingredients of quantum theory, probability and complex numbers. The paper is dedicated…

Stirling Colgate was a remarkably imaginative physicist, an independent thinker with a wide breadth of interests and contagious enthusiasm, a born leader with enduring drive to attack fundamental problems in science. Among his many…

Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922) presented a model for the distribution of stars in space together with a dynamical interpretation in terms of an equilibrium between the gravitational field of the stars and their random motion and…

In 1614, the German astronomer Simon Mayr published his claim to have discovered the satellites of Jupiter. Writing in the treatise Mundus Jovialis, Mayr made his assertion in a convoluted but unequivocal manner, earning the displeasure of…

We introduce the south-pointing chariot, an intriguing mechanical device from ancient China. We use its ability to keep track of a global direction as it travels on an arbitrary path as a tool to explore the geometry of curved surfaces.…

Inspired by the relation between the algebra of complex numbers and plane geometry, William Rowan Hamilton sought an algebra of triples for application to three dimensional geometry. Unable to multiply and divide triples, he invented a…

Gravity is, by far, one of the scientific themes that have most piqued the curiosity of scientists and philosophers over the centuries. The history of science tells us that when the creative effort of physicists and philosophers to solve…

Galileo Galilei had sufficient skill as an observer and instrument builder to be able to measure the positions and apparent sizes of objects seen through his telescopes to an accuracy of 2" or better. However, Galileo had no knowledge of…

We present a way of teaching Einstein's special relativity. It starts with Galileo's relativity, the learners know from previous lectures. The lecture underlines that we can have three transformation equations for the space-time coordinates…

Independent to a great extent from the scientific development of the discipline, a trend for statistics has developed in France, from 1827 on. It was probably sparked by Charles Dupin's 'Carte figurative de l'instruction populaire', with…

The changing heavens have played a central role in the scientific effort of astronomers for centuries. Galileo's synoptic observations of the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus starting in 1610, provided strong refutation of Ptolemaic…

This is an exposition of the contributions of L\'aszl\'o Lov\'asz to mathematics and computer science written on the occasion of the bestowal of the Abel Prize~2021 to him. Our survey, of course, cannot be exhaustive. We sketch remarkable…

The Copernican Principle (which says the Earth and sun are not unique) should have observational consequences and thus be testable. Galileo Galilei thought he could measure the true angular diameters of stars with his telescope; according…

There are vast educational research works that highlight the serious difficulties that students present in learning astronomical subjects, as well as the prevalence of a traditional education distanced from the observational and…

Society is changing, has always changed, and will keep changing. However, changes are becoming faster and what used to happen between generations, now happens in the same generation. Computing Science is one of the reasons for this speed…

Exploration of the time domain - variable and transient objects and phenomena - is rapidly becoming a vibrant research frontier, touching on essentially every field of astronomy and astrophysics, from the Solar system to cosmology. Time…