The Birth of Modern Astronomy Part 2

I can give you as an example the theory of evolution for instance. The theory of evolution
is a beautiful scientific theory. It's quite a simple theory, but it's beautiful and scientific in
the sense that it can make predictions and you can test those predictions. In fact you
could destroy the theory of evolution very, very easily. It explains that the development
of species upon our planet has happened over a very long period of time, and simpler,
less complex organisms have eventually evolved into the much more complicated
organisms that we see around us today.

And you can easily falsify that by looking back through the fossil record. Does it go back,
as you go down through the fossil record, do you go back to simpler and simpler
organisms? It turns out that when you do that, that's exactly what happens. You could
destroy the theory of evolution by finding one single complicated fossil from hundreds of
millions of years ago. So it turns out that the theory of evolution is a beautiful scientific
theory, because it can be tested. Is falsifiable.

So for instance archaeologists were able to look at the fossil record and show that there
was a transition between sea animals, sea creatures, to land creatures in the fossil records
from around 380 million years ago to 360 million years. Before 380 million years ago,
there were no creatures existing on the land, and then by 360 million years ago there
definitely were creatures on the land. So archaeologists were able to predict at there
must've been a transition between sea creatures to land creatures in that time period from
380 to 360 million years ago.

And there was a famous group of archaeologists led by Neil Shubin that looked for a
transitional fossil that later became known as tiktaalik. It was only discovered in the last
two decades, which was discovered in rocks that were around about 370 million years
old. And that sure was the transition that occurred in the Earth's history from sea to land
creatures.

And astronomy is no different from that is it? The heliocentric model is a beautiful
scientific model because it makes predictions and you can test those predictions. Now it
turns it at the major flaw in the model was that Copernicus still had the planets orbiting
the sun in circular orbits, and it wasn't until Kepler showed that the orbits were elliptical
that the model became much more accurate.

So we have this battle going on through the end of Copernicus' life, through the life of the
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe right the whole way through to Kepler. These two
models fought against one another. But there you have it. Copernicus' ideas were not
widely accepted because people were convinced that the Earth must be at the center of
the universe.

And then along came Galileo. Galileo is considered to be the father of modern
astronomy. What Galileo did do was make great observations of the nighttime sky. He
built a homemade telescope. He certainly didn't invent the telescope, the telescope had
already been invented probably around and Holland, the Netherlands, region. It was first
of all used as an item of war because it was able to, for instance if you were on a ship and
you pointed a telescope arc, you could actually see enemy ships before they could see
you. So it was almost a clandestine device.

Then it suddenly became known around about 1609 and people all over Europe started to
use this new found device called the telescope. Galileo was one of the first people that we
know of to use the telescope for scientific purposes. And what he did was he started to
make detailed observations through this small telescope, which was not even as good as a
pair of binoculars that we would have today.

And here are some of his actual original drawings. First of all, here is a sketch that he
made of the Milky Way. So the Milky Way appears as a faint band of light going across
the sky. When Galileo pointed his telescope at this band of light, he could see that it was
just thousands upon thousands of stars that the human eye couldn't see. The telescope was
better and it could see things easier.

He also pointed his telescope at the sun. Never look at the sun. You could damage your
eyes by looking at the sun. Galileo actually went blind later on in his life, and it may have
been because of-- one of the reasons may have been because he was actually pointing his
telescope at the sun. But when he did so, he noticed that the sun had spots on it. The sun
had blemishes, which we call sunspots. So the heavens weren't perfect. Galileo was the
first person in the western world to notice that the sun had these blemishes. We've been
recording them on the sun for over 400 years now, since Galileo first saw them.

He then made detailed observations of the moon. Here's a sketch that he actually made of
the moon. He's very good scientifically, also a pretty good artist as well. Now when he
made these sketches of the moon, he realized that the moon was a place. The moon
wasn't different from the Earth. The moon was a world, just like the Earth was a world.
What he well to do, if you actually look at the terminator line, that's line that there is
between day and night, you can see that there are spots, little white spots, on the dark side
of the moon.

What you're seeing there is you're seeing the peak of a mountain. And the reason why
that you can see that spot is because the mountain's so high that the sunlight is still
shining on the top of the mountain even though it's quite a ways away from the
terminator. What Galileo was able to do, he was able to estimate the height of mountain
by measuring the distance that it was away from the terminator line. And when he did
those calculations, indeed he was able to show that mountains on the moon were a similar
size to mountains that existed in Italy. And then probably the most famous observations
that he made were in January of 1610 when he made detailed observations of the planet
Jupiter.

Here are his original sketches. Now what he was doing was he was going to observe
Jupiter through his tiny telescope you could see that there was a tiny little disc of Jupiter.
And here he recorded that disc with three little stars that were beside it. On the next night
he knows the planets move against the background of stars, so he could see the Jupiter
had moved, but he noted that the little stars have moved as well. After observing it for
about a week, he was convinced that these little points, which he originally thought were
stars, were actually moons.

Jupiter had moons just like the Earth had a moon. So here we have real solid scientific
evidence that the Earth is not the center of the solar system. Here we have objects which
are not going around the Earth. They're clearly going around Jupiter. So the Earth doesn't
appear to be special. In fact, he was convinced that the Earth was just a planet.

Unfortunately he got into trouble for espousing these views, because the Church of the
day, the Roman Catholic Church, had pretty much adopted Galileo's philosophy. It had
pretty much adopted the Ptolemaic model, the geocentric model of the universe and it
wasn't prepared to tolerate anybody who questioned those ideas. And Galileo found
himself before the Inquisition.

Now at that time it was very, very dangerous to go against the church. If you were found
to be a heretic, you could be in serious trouble. If you want to look up in a bit more detail,
why not check out the life of Giordano Bruno. He was found to be a heretic and was
burned at the stake in 1601 for his heretical views. In terms of his astronomical heresy, he
basically stated at the Earth wasn't special, they were probably millions of planets. People
weren't special, there were probably millions of civilizations. The universe had to be
infinite because the creator of the universe, God, was infinite and the universe should
mimic the creator.

He was burned at the stake in 1601 for heresy. Unfortunately, Galileo was also find guilty
of heresy. Thankfully, he wasn't burned at the stake. He was certainly condemned by the
Inquisition, but he spent the rest of his life, the last 15 years of his life, under house arrest
for his heretical views.

Now the reason why Copernicus did get into trouble was Copernicus was quite timid,
quite quiet, and certainly didn't want to rock the boat. Galileo was quite a gruff person,
ready to challenge anybody else. In fact, he could be quite insulting. He created, wrote a
book. The book was written in a dialogue form. In fact, it was called The Dialogue, and
in the book the two models, the heliocentric model and the geocentric model, both of
those models were espoused by two different characters.

The character who espoused to the heliocentric model was very trendy, he had all the
latest ideas of the day. His proposals were very, very convincing. The character who
espoused the church's view, the geocentric model, was called Simplicio. He was an idiot,
a simpleton. And unfortunately, Galileo put the words of the pope of the day in the mouth
of this Simplicio. So he deeply offended the pope. He ended up being charged with
heresy and found guilty.

Here's a quote from the actual inquisition itself in condemning Galileo. The proposition
that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and
false, philosophically. So they're telling Galileo he's incorrect, but not only is he
incorrect, he was heretical, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the
holy scripture.

And what the Inquisition did, they wrote down several verses that and they deemed
espoused this geocentric model. I'm not going to go through all of them, but here's one of
the famous verses that they quoted in their judgment. It's taken from the book of
Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. Generations come and generations go, but the Earth
remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. So the
inquisitors are suggesting that this verse it makes it clear that it's the sun that's moving
and the Earth that's actually stationary. So unfortunately Galileo was condemned for
being a heretic and spent the last 15 years of his life under house arrest.

A contemporary of Galileo was Danish astronomer called Tuko Brahe or Tycho Brahe.
He was a brilliant astronomer. In fact in my opinion he was the greatest astronomer who
ever lived. Most people would recognize him as certainly being the greatest astronomer
the pre-telescope era. He died in 1601 before the telescope was widely known. So he
certainly never pointed a telescope up to the sky. I personally consider him to be the
greatest astronomer who ever lived.

I also like him because he was quite eccentric. I can give you a few interesting anecdotes
about his life. If you look at hi portrait there, you'll see if you look very, very carefully,
that appears to have a Band-Aid on his nose. That's actually not a Band-Aid. That is a
metal nose. The reason why he has a metal nose was because he got into an argument at a
wedding banquet and he argued with one of the guests. And they decided to sort the
dispute out by having a duel.

So they went outside, drew swords, and this other person took a lump out of Tycho
Brahe's nose. And so because he was rich, he was able to get a special piece of metal
plate made that he could pop into the hole in his nose. It was pretty wild stuff. He was
very, very fond of going to wedding banquets. In fact at one banquet, he ended up
making a bet with another guest. The bet centered around his pet moose. Yes, he actually
had a pet moose. He domesticated that moose. The moose with follow him around his
castle. It followed him about like a dog.

And he bet his friend that animals could get drunk on beer just the same way that humans
could get drunk on beer. Have a guess how he won the bet. Yes he got the moose drunk.
Unfortunately he won the bet, but the moose got so drunk that it fell down the stairs,
broke its ankle, and actually died. Very, very sad story.

Now he also employed a dwarf called Jep. He would have banquets himself. He would
invite guests to his banquet and Jep would sit under the banquet table and Brahe and his
guests would ask questions. And Jep would give the answer from under the table as if the
spirits we're speaking to the guests. Quite an eccentric character. He had the metal nose,
he had a pet moose, he also unfortunately died a horrible death.
He was at a wedding banquet and he needed to go to the bathroom. Now we're talking
number twos here rather than number ones. He was too polite to get up from the table,
and unfortunately ruptured his colon and died from blood poisoning a few days later, in
excruciating pain. There we go quite an eccentric character.