On June 22, 1633, Galileo Galilei was condemned by a tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church for teaching that the Earth revolves about the sun, rather than the other way round.
Science
"Eppur si muove" – Galileo at his trial
The map of the known world from Ptolemy's "Geography"
In Ptolemy’s maps, Columbus saw his destiny
In mid-February 1493, Christopher Columbus’ ships, the Niña and the Pinta, neared the Azores on their return journey from the New World. The flagship, Santa Maria, had been wrecked on the shore of what is now Haiti, and Columbus had left some of his crew behind at a place he called Navidad.
The progress of science is worth a few giggles
On Columbus Day [1992], NASA scientists will launch a massive new search for intelligent alien life. The $100 million, 10-year project will use some of the world’s largest radio telescopes and fastest computers to scan the entire sky for signals of intelligent origin, with particular emphasis on 1,000 carefully-selected sun-like stars.
Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash
Look out for Dinowritersaurus
They call him Dino Don. He is Don Lessem, of Waban, Massachusetts, and he is editor and chief writer of Dino Times, a monthly newspaper for kids about dinosaurs, published by the Dinosaur Society.
A USAF nuclear bomb • Image by Chairboy (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Making the unthinkable thinkable
Several weeks ago this column poked fun at anthropologist Sharon Traweek’s claim that the language of high energy physicists is riddled with sexual imagery.
The oddball ostrich was an anomaly of nature • Photo by Stefan Strebl on Unsplash
Oddball ideas have it tough
Every scientist in the public eye is the frequent recipient of off-beat theories from out-of-the-mainstream amateur scientists.
Photo by Antonio Gabola on Unsplash
In 1992, be it resolved that scientists…
I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. The few times I’ve determined to change bad habits my resolve has dissolved sometime around the middle of the first week of January. Oh, well, never mind, there’s always next year.
And the nominees are...
An envelope filled with history’s great scientists
Who was the most important scientist of all time?
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Public Domain)
How many Holy Grails are there out there?
Big science costs big bucks. Big bucks can only come from the taxpayer’s pocket. Which means scientists must get in line with everyone else for a piece of the federal pie. And lobby just as hard for their share.
The mating behavior of PhDs
The heart of a scientist is as easily warmed and as easily broken as anyone else’s, and that’s probably why the search for love finally is making its way into journals with names like Technology Review and Science.