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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Galileo's blindness is usually attributed to his viewing of the Sun--hence his discovery of Sunspots. Even though he attempted to obsevre early morning/late afternoons, the retinal destruction took place.
Edit:Galileo was a good friend of the then-current pope. In his book, he had a conversation between a teacher and a fool explaning the Copernican theory of heliocentrism. The pope took it the "wrong way" believing that Galileo was mocking him. Only the friendship kept Galileo from burning at the stake.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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The moon has dimmed the show a bit now, but last month bright Mars appeared in the same binocular field as an open star cluster called the Beehive. Seeing the two together, one astronomically nearby and the other far away, was quite a beautiful sight. They're still out there tonight if you look.
A few years ago, Saturn lined up with the Beehive. That was quite something, in a wide-field telescope.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Galileo was a good friend of the current pope.
Wow, I had no idea that the pope had been around that long.
He's really old!
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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If you haven't seen NOVA: Galileo's Battle for the Heavens
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/galileo/
You must!
In one simple elegant observational experiment with a telescope he invented, an improvement of a sailor's spy glass, Galileo blew away the Church's Aristotle Geocentric view of the Universe . . .
By viewing Jupiter's 4 largest Moons, the Galilean Moons, orbiting Jupiter and documenting these observations, he elegantly blew away the Geocentric view of the Universe since -- How can the Earth be the center of the Universe when we can clearly see the Moons of Jupiter orbit Jupiter? Simple elegant invalidation of Geocentrism.
Now with the phases of Venus, obviously Venus as well as the other planets orbit the Sun, the Heliocentric model of our Solar System, validating Copernicus.
Simple and elegant.
It took the Catholic Church hundreds of years after Galileo's death to apologize through the Pope John Paul, for how the Church treated him.
By the way, many scriptures in the Bible seem to indicate we are not at the center of the Solar System, especially The Book of Enoch. There is a complete model of the Solar System perhaps the Universe in the Book of Enoch. It is an amazing read. And with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they also discovered a copy of The Book of Enoch.
Classic line in a DVD I show my students on Galileo, where Galileo says to the priests in authority over him, that he is debating . . .
"If those in authority within the Church misread the Heavens, perhaps they also misread the word of GOD."
Who knows if he ever actually said this, but he loved a good debate, and he was very good at it. So, maybe he did say something to this effect at some time?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2010 - 05:43pm PT
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I'm still working on the Ganymede thing, waiting for the usual scientists to appear.
Pip helpfully posted a list of all of Jupiter's known moons. The convention is that they are named after Jupiter's wives and lovers. 63 so far, with more names available. He seems to have done better than Tiger Woods, although undoubtedly times were different then.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Peenemunde
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We live in such an amazing Universe.
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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FWIW: Ganymede was a boy, a prince of early Troy, said to be the most beautiful of mortals. ganyesthai + medea -- "rejoicing in virility" [trans: R. Graves].
Zeus was clearly an omnivore on the sexuality front. Greek mythos says that Zeus, in the form of an eagle, stole Ganymede to be his eromenos (uh, ‘boy toy’).
Nothing that I’m aware of in the archaic greek canon (not that that limits the field much) mentions Ganymede’s feelings about this arrangement.
~~~
What first came to my small mind on the pun front was ‘Granna’s meade’ – as my paternal grandmother (Granna, from Galway) was a big promoter of meade, a truly toxic brew made from fermented honey. I myself wouldn’t swallow it (again) on a big money dare; but it is said to be have been much favored by the ancient Celts. That and at old school irish weddings, the last (of oh so many) toasts to the newly married couple is made with meade – and intended to grant them great sex on their first(?) night together. The couple is also given enough meade to last them until the next full moon.
Hence the term “honeymoon.”
And my mighty grandmother Rose was adamant to her last day that this custom be honored. Hence she always brought a few bottles to every family wedding. As she was the eldest, and matriarch of the clan, her wishes were... if not so much respected, obeyed. After my first swallow of the stuff (at age 10ish) I knew to "Hurrah!" a lot -- then quick dump my short shot of it into the nearest potted plant, a trick I learned from my innumerable cousins and elders.
Kinda tastes like old school brown mexican cough syrup – sickly sweet, only without the dizzying opiate upside. (don’t ask me how I know this.)
Somewhere between Ganymede, my Granna’s meade, honey-moons, and Tiger Woods -- there may well be a pun.
but I’ll leave that to you big kids...
^,,^
[MH, fwiw: "coach" is a term of respect in my neighborhood]
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Don't EVER get $hitfaced on Mead--the hangovers are really fierce!
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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"It was on this page that Galileo first noted an observation of the moons of Jupiter. This observation upset the notion that all celestial bodies must revolve around the Earth. Galileo published a full description in Sidereus Nuncius in March 1610."
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2010 - 04:01pm PT
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So if the question of Galileo was "Ganymede the challenge?", the answer is definitely yes.
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