Related papers: Boscovich and the Brera Observatory
In the middle of the seventeenth century, Andr\'e Tacquet, S.J. briefly discussed a scientific argument regarding the structure of a Copernican universe, and commented on Galileo Galilei's discussion of that same argument -- Galileo's…
G. B. Riccioli's 1651 Almagestum Novum contains a table of diameters of stars measured by Riccioli and his associates with a telescope. These telescopically measured star diameters are spurious, caused by the diffraction of light waves…
While Kepler was still working in Graz during 1598, some letters to his mentor Michael Maestlin demonstrate his interest in astronomical clocks and machines. The first letter, dated January 6, 1598 contains a detailed description of a…
Astronomical interest within the current Colombian territory has its roots in the Botanical Expedition of the New Kingdom of Granada (1783-1813), which stimulated the creation of an astronomical observatory in 1803, the first one…
In October 1604, when SN1604, the last naked-eye visible supernova in our Galaxy, exploded, Galileo Galilei was the professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Padua, teaching the mechanics of planets. He was therefore the…
In 1615 Paolo A. Foscarini, a Carmelite monk lived in a monastery of south Italy near Cosenza (Calabria), published a Trattato which, at variance to what was common at the time, has not been written in Latin, but in volgare, the ancient…
The 1896-1901 Milanese period is a key one to understand Einstein's training background. When he was a student at the ETH in Z\"urich (the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Z\"urich) from 1896 to 1900, he would make regular trips back to Milan…
What can physics students learn about science from those scientists who got the answers wrong? Students encounter little science history, and what they have encountered typically portrays scientists as The People with the Right Answers. But…
The paper reassesses the largely neglected contribution of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980-1037) to medieval Tajik-Persian astronomy. Drawing on published primary and secondary sources, it reconstructs the main directions of his scientific activity…
G.V.Juggarow was one of the early pioneers of observational astronomy in India who built his own observatory in 1840 at Vizagapatnam. His legacy was continued by his son-in-law A.V.Nursing Row till 1892, his daughter till 1894, Madras…
Christian Ludwig Gerling's 1817 appointment as Professor for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy resulted in the foundation of the Mathematical and Physical Institute of the Philipps University. In 1838, Gerling moved onto new premises in…
The Clementine Gnomon realized in 1702 by the astronomer Francesco Bianchini (1661-1729) upon the will of Pope Clement XI (1700-1721) in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome is fully reviewed about its scientific functions.
"El Cielo de Salamanca" ("The Sky of Salamanca") is a quarter-sphere-shaped vault 8.70 metres in diameter. It was painted sometime between 1480 and 1493 and shows five zodiacal constellations, three boreal and six austral. The Sun and…
The last decade witnessed a renewed interest in the development of the Italian computer industry and in the role of the Fifties pioneers in Rome, Milan, Ivrea, and Pisa. The aim of the paper is to retrace some steps of the CEP project,…
S.Co.P.E. is one of the four projects funded by the Italian Government in order to provide Southern Italy with a distributed computing infrastructure for fundamental science. Beside being aimed at building the infrastructure, S.Co.P.E. is…
By the twelfth century, northern European scholars gradually embraced Arabic innovations in science and technology. England naturally developed into a significant centre of the new learning in western Europe. Hereford, and specifically its…
In an article written by Giulio Magli on the orientation of the Roman towns, Bononia, the Roman Bologna, is given as a specific example to support Magli's thesis on the existence of preferred solar alignments of the urban layout. Assuming…
There is a widespread interest to digitize the precious information contained in the astronomical plate archives, both for the preservation of their content and for its fast distribution to all interested researchers in order to achieve…
Probably, the long-term monitoring of the solar atmosphere started in Italy with the first telescopic observations of the Sun made by Galileo Galilei in the early $17^{\mathrm{th}}$ century. His recorded observations and science results, as…
In January of 1985, more than 40 years ago, a group of astronomers met with NASA officials to map out the future of NASA space astronomy. Their efforts led to the Great Observatories program, linking four powerful space telescopes to study…