Saturday, January 23, 2016

Astronomy

Astronomy 

The Renaissance was a time full of invention, art, and science. The 1600's brought so many scientific discoveries and inventions that changed the world. Galileo Galilei was among the most influential and important people during that time. He has been referred to as the "father of observational astronomy" and of modern physics. With the help of a telescope, Galileo made a number of discoveries in the sky. Along with confirming the phases of Venus, the observation and recording of sunspots, and discovering Jupiters four satellites, Galileo also made notable contributions to engineering, physics, and mathematics. He started out on the path to be a professor at university, but due to insufficient funds, he had to change his plan. He stopped school before he got his degree, but this was a silver lining in a way because he had more time to make in depth studies of falling objects, etc. Some of Galileo's observations were very controversial, however, and got him into some trouble. The main one was his belief that  the planets revolved around the sun, which opposed the Catholic Church. He kept supporting this Copernican theory and wrote about it. The inquisition lasted a while and he was eventually convicted of heresy and had to spend his time under house arrest. Even though he was under house arrest and wasn't supposed to continue his studies or make contact with the outside world, he kept doing that anyways. In his remaining years, Galileo wrote a summary of his life's work and had it published, which is why he is such an inspiring man. 

In order to combine both old and contemporary observational and technological techniques in astronomy, Darpan and I collaborated to create a multi-faceted project. The seven drawings and writings I did were of the history of the moon according to scientists of their time. This history starts in the 300's BC with Aristotle and ends with Galileo in the early 1600's. The first is a theory by Aristotle that the lunar sphere is the only one that comes in contact with the sublunary orbs terrestrial matter. The second is about how the tides are caused by the moon and its position relative to the sun. The third is a bunch of fairly accurate observations of the moon made in Baghdad by Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi. Next is a comparison made by Shen Kuo in the early 1000's that compares the moon to a sphere covered in white powder that makes the sphere look round because of the crescent the powder and light creates. Some time after, William Gilbert made the first map of the moon with his naked eye and basically mapped the light and dark areas of the moon. About 20 years later, a lesser known astronomer, Thomsas Harriot, made the first map of the moon with a telescope. It is often thought that Galileo was the first to make a map of the moon from a telescope, but it was in fact Harriot. The last drawing is of Galileo's watercolor observations of the moon from his homemade telescope. Then, to continue with the history but in a more technological sense, Darpan drew telescopes designed by different scientists and astronomers that had significance in the advancement of telescopes. Her telescopes pick up where mine left off - at Galileo. We did this because Galileo is recorded as the first to draw the moon with the aid of a telescope so the technology aspect really picks up there. It goes to modern times and ends with the Darprojector, a homemade projector used to draw the moon - similar to what Galileo did. 

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