Interesting Facts about Galileo

I listen to Galileo by John L. Heilbron.

Some interesting facts from the book are below together with links that I have found in Internet.

 Galileo about Inferno

Galileo has started his scientific career with a speech about how Inferno looks like where he has applied his mathematical genius to find out which theory was the correct one.

Two Lectures to the Florentine Academy On the Shape, Location and Size of Dante’s Inferno by Galileo Galilei, 1588

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/mpeterso/galileo/inferno.html

Galileo against clothes

Galileo has a poem poem “Against the Donning of Gown”

I now conclude, and turn to you, signor,
And force you to confess, against your will,
The Greatest Good will be all clothes to abhor

GALILEO & NATURISM
His First Heresy
Marvin Frandsen, Nude & Natural

http://www.free11.org/PRSIG/papers/2001.02.00.Galileo%20&%20Naturism%20-%20His%20First%20Heresy.N%2020.3.Frandsen.pdf

Military Compass as Calculator

Galileo has invented a military compass (sector) to use it as a calculator. This was Galileo’s big business.

Galileo’s compass, Institute and Museum of the History of Science
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/esplora/compasso/

Throughout the Renaissance, many attempts were made to develop a universal instrument that could be used to perform arithmetical calculation and geometric operations easily. This need was felt especially in the military field, where the technology of firearms called for increasingly precise mathematical knowledge. To satisfy these requisites, the first proportional compasses were developed in the second half of the sixteenth century, among them some singular instruments known as the “radio latino” and the “proteo militare”. The geometric and military compass of Galileo (1564-1642) belonged to this class of instruments.”


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