Related papers: Gerberto e l'Astronomia
The scientific revolution in the first half of the seventeenth century, pioneered by figures such as Harvey, Galileo, Gassendi, Kepler and Descartes, was disseminated to the northernmost countries in Europe with considerable delay. In this…
I offer a revisionist interpretation of Galileo's role in the history of science. My overarching thesis is that Galileo lacked technical ability in mathematics, and that this can be seen as directly explaining numerous aspects of his life's…
Astronomy is an observationally-led subject where chance discoveries play an important role. A whole range of such discoveries is continually made, from the trivial to the highly significant. What is generally needed is for luck to strike…
Leonhard Euler, the most prolific mathematician in history, contributed to advance a wide spectrum of topics in celestial mechanics. At the Saint Petersburg Observatory, Euler observed sunspots and tracked the movements of the Moon.…
The study of the Universe and all its contents, the physical phenomena and the evolution of the sky objects has always attracted the Humanity. The Astronomy begins to try to explain these things, others sciences too. Therefore, we think a…
D\'ungal's letter to Charlemagne on the double solar eclipse in the year 810 is extremely interesting both for its form and for its subject matter. Part I of the present study deals with the epistula as a literary work (genre, language,…
A brief review is given of some recent positive developments regarding the reception of archaeoastronomy by the archaeological institutions in Italy. Discussions and problems that are currently going on in this field are also mentioned,…
We consider the attitude of astronomers in Argentina in connection with the new problems posed by relativity theory, before and after GR was presented. We begin considering the sequence of "technical" publications that appeared and use it…
Solar eclipses play an important role in the history of astronomy because their observation allowed astrophysics to expand. The eclipse of August 30th, 1905 is particularly interesting since the line of totality passes through Spain and…
The celestial phenomenon have always been a source of wonder and interest to people, even as long ago as the ancient Egyptians. While the ancient Egyptians did not know all the things about astronomy that we do now, they had a good…
In the century since Einstein's anno mirabilis of 1905, our concept of the Universe has expanded from Kapteyn's flattened disk of stars only 10 kpc across to an observed horizon about 30 Gpc across that is only a tiny fraction of an…
One of the mayor topics in astronomy at the beginning of the 19th century was the interpretation of the observations of the first asteroids. In 1810 Christian Ludwig Gerling at the age of twenty two came to G\"ottingen University to…
This article advances the hypothesis that the heightened eschatological sensitivity evident among the historians writing in the 5th century and its weaker echos in the time of Charlemagne were caused by the irregularities of the the…
Galileo's support to the Copernican theory was decisive for the revolutionary astronomical discoveries he achieved in 1610. We trace the origins of Galileo's conversion to the Copernican theory, discussing in particular the "Dialogo de…
Johannes Kepler described the Copernican universe as consisting of a central, small, brilliant sun with its planetary system, all surrounded by giant stars. These stars were far larger than, and much dimmer than, the sun -- his De Stella…
Robert Grosseteste was one of the most prominent thinkers of the Thirteenth Century. Philosopher and scientist, he proposed a metaphysics based on the propagation of light. In this framework, he gave a cosmology too. Here we will discuss…
Hipparchus is considered the greatest astronomer of antiquity. However, his fame is due, more than to what he has done, or said, or written, to what the scientists of some generation or of a few cen-turies later have written of him: above…
This paper provides an overview of recent historical research regarding scientifically-informed challenges to the idea that the stars are other suns orbited by other inhabited earths -- an idea that came to be known as "the Plurality of…
We report our experience in bringing science into US and French classrooms. We participated in the US scientific educational program Project ASTRO. It is based on a partnership between a school teacher and an astronomer. They together…
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…