Description
Tycho reached the limits of what could be done with the naked eye. A
new technology was required to extend our vision: the telescope. This
lecture introduces Galileo Galilei, the contemporary of Kepler who was
in many ways the first modern astronomer, and describes his many
discoveries with the telescope. These observations electrified Europe
in the early 17th century, and set the stage for the final dismantling
of the Aristotelian view of the world. Galileo's claims that they
constituted proof of the Copernican Heliocentric System, however, were
to bring him into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. Recorded
2007 Oct 11 in 1000 McPherson Lab on the Columbus campus of The Ohio
State University.
A new podcast, Astronomy 141, Life in the Universe, is available
for those interested in continuing an exploration of topics in
modern astronomy.
Published 12/06/09
Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how
we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather
than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I
am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what to look
for...
Published 11/30/07