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Announcements. Next exam is scheduled for Monday March 31. Due to icemaggedon , it will be delayed one week to Monday April 7. Tentatively will cover the rest of Chapter 5 (from Kepler) and all of Chapter 6 and some of Chapter 7.
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Announcements • Next exam is scheduled for Monday March 31. Due to icemaggedon, it will be delayed one week to Monday April 7. Tentatively will cover the rest of Chapter 5 (from Kepler) and all of Chapter 6 and some of Chapter 7. • Dark Sky Observing Night next Wednesday. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. Set-up starts at 7:30pm.
Rene Descartes 1596 – 1650 I think, therefore,I am Not an astronomer but a philosopher/mathematician. Like Plato, though, his philosophy influences astronomical thought.
Born in La Haye near Tours in southern France His father was a Councilor in Parliament and an intellectual so he was raised an environment conducive to learning and education
He studied at the Jesuit College in La Fleche and then Canon Law at Poitiers The modern day University of Poitiers 17th Century painting of the Jesuit College at La Fleche
In 1628 he moved to Holland where he stayed until 1649, moving frequently Dordrecht (1628), Franeker (1629), Amsterdam (1629-30), Leiden (1630), Amsterdam (1630-2), Deventer (1632-4), Amsterdam (1634-5), Utrecht (1635-6), Leiden (1636), Egmond (1636-8), Santpoort (1638-1640), Leiden (1640-1), Endegeest (a castle near Oegstgeest) (1641-3), and finally for an extended time in Egmond-Binnen (1643-9).
Most of his major works were published while he was in Holland Discourse on The Methods was first published in 1637
The universe of Descartes was filled with an aether Matter filled the universe. It was only through motion that “objects” had form
His work was of sufficient importance to geometry that we call the coordinate system Cartesian
He dies in Stockholm onFebruary 11, 1650 His tomb is at the Church of Saint Germain des Pres, Paris
William Gilbert proposed the Earth was a huge magnet Published in 1600, On The Magnetic was a treatise on magnetism
English intellectuals of the early 1600’s gathered at Gresham College Check out the Gresham College website
In 1660 the Greshamites form the Royal Society The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society have been published since 1665 and are available online
Robert Hooke is the Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society Known as London’s Leonardo because of his involvement in the rebuilding of London after the great fire of 1666. His experiments on the pendulum gave rise to Hooke’s Law. Check out the official Robert Hooke website
Hooke attempted to prove that Earth moved An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth by ObservationsMade by: Robert Hooke Fellow of the Royal Society. *Senec. Nat. Qu. lib. I. cap. 30. `Nèmiremur tam tardèeruiquæ tam altèjacent. Wether the Earth move or stand still hath been a Problem, that since Copernicus revived it, hath much exercised the Wits our best modern Astronomers and Philosophers, amongst which notwithstanding there hath not been any one who hath found out a certain manifestation either of the one or the other Doctrine. The more knowing and judicious have for many plausible reasons adhered to the Copernican Hypothesis: But the generality of others, either out of ignorance or prejudice, have rejected it as a most extravagant opinion. A major result of this work was the idea of mutual attraction
Hooke postulates an attractive force between the Sun and planets that diminishes with distance He never showed it was an inverse square law, just an inverse law of some sort.
In a series of letters, Hooke spurred Newton into thinking about Gravity Hooke’s “discussions” with Newton became somewhat critical of Newton’s ideas. As a result, Newton despised Hooke and eventually tries to erase all traces of him from the Royal Society records