Friday, July 10, 2009
Galileo may have discovered Neptune
David Jamieson, the head of the University of Melbourne School of Physics, made the astonishing claim, after studying in great details the work that Galileo left behind. Galileo may indeed have formed the hypothesis that he had seen a new planet which had moved right across the field of view during his observations of Jupiter over the month of January 1613. If this is correct Galileo observed Neptune 234 years before its official discovery. Galileo was in the habit of sending a scrambled sentence, an anagram, to his colleagues to establish his priority for the sensational discoveries he made with his new telescope. He did this when he discovered the phases of Venus and the rings of Saturn. So perhaps somewhere he wrote an as-yet undecoded anagram that reveals he knew he discovered a new planet.
IMO: The moral is that it is helpful to leave clear notes. I wish it was more common. The problem is that this can lead to execution or jail, even today. O tempora ! O mores !
IMO: The moral is that it is helpful to leave clear notes. I wish it was more common. The problem is that this can lead to execution or jail, even today. O tempora ! O mores !
# posted by uv : 7:26 PM
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