HeliocentrismHeliocentrism (also known as the Heliocentric model) is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the universe. Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the third century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, who had been influenced by a concept presented by Philolaus of Croton (c. 470 – 385 BC).
Rømer's determination of the speed of lightRømer's determination of the speed of light was the demonstration in 1676 that light has an apprehensible, measurable speed and so does not travel instantaneously. The discovery is usually attributed to Danish astronomer Ole Rømer, who was working at the Royal Observatory in Paris at the time. By timing the eclipses of the Jovian moon Io, Rømer estimated that light would take about 22 minutes to travel a distance equal to the diameter of Earth's orbit around the Sun.
Pontifical Academy of SciencesThe Pontifical Academy of Sciences (Pontificia accademia delle scienze, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences and the study of related epistemological problems. The Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei ("Pontifical Academy of the New Lynxes") was founded in 1847 as a more closely supervised successor to the Accademia dei Lincei ("Academy of Lynxes") established in Rome in 1603 by the learned Roman Prince, Federico Cesi (1585–1630), who was a young botanist and naturalist, and which claimed Galileo Galilei as its president.
Galileo's shipGalileo's ship refers to two physics experiments, a thought experiment and an actual experiment, by Galileo Galilei, the 16th- and 17th-century physicist and astronomer. The experiments were created to argue the idea of a rotating Earth as opposed to a stationary Earth around which rotated the Sun, planets, and stars. An argument that was used at the time was that if Earth were rotating, there would be detectable effects on the trajectories of projectiles or falling bodies.
Two New SciencesThe Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze diˈskorsi e ddimostratˈtsjoːni mateˈmaːtike inˈtorno a dˈduːe ˈnwɔːve ʃˈʃɛntse) published in 1638 was Galileo Galilei's final book and a scientific testament covering much of his work in physics over the preceding thirty years. It was written partly in Italian and partly in Latin.
Galilean invarianceGalilean invariance or Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames of reference. Galileo Galilei first described this principle in 1632 in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems using the example of a ship travelling at constant velocity, without rocking, on a smooth sea; any observer below the deck would not be able to tell whether the ship was moving or stationary.
StaticsStatics is the branch of classical mechanics that is concerned with the analysis of force and torque acting on a physical system that does not experience an acceleration, but rather, is in static equilibrium with its environment. If is the total of the forces acting on the system, is the mass of the system and is the acceleration of the system, Newton's second law states that (the bold font indicates a vector quantity, i.e. one with both magnitude and direction). If , then .
History of classical mechanicsThis article deals with the history of classical mechanics. Aristotelian physics and Mathematical physics The ancient Greek philosophers, Aristotle in particular, were among the first to propose that abstract principles govern nature. Aristotle argued, in On the Heavens, that terrestrial bodies rise or fall to their "natural place" and stated as a law the correct approximation that an object's speed of fall is proportional to its weight and inversely proportional to the density of the fluid it is falling through.
Accademia dei LinceiThe Accademia dei Lincei (akkaˈdɛːmja dei linˈtʃɛi; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in the Papal States in 1603 by Federico Cesi, the academy was named after the lynx, an animal whose sharp vision symbolizes the observational prowess that science requires.
Galileo affairThe Galileo affair (il processo a Galileo Galilei) began around 1610 and culminated with the trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633. Galileo was prosecuted for his support of heliocentrism, the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the centre of the universe. In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing the observations that he had made with his new, much stronger telescope, amongst them, the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
