Galileo Galilei

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei (1564 – 1642), or simply Galileo, was a Florentine astronomer, engineer, physicist and very much a polymath who has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern science and the scientific method.

He was born and raised in Pisa, lying in the Duchy of Florence at the time, as the eldest child of lutenist and composer Vincenzo Galilei with Giulia Ammannati before he moved to Florence at the age of ten to rejoin his family, having spent a couple of years under the care of Muzio Tedaldi.

His name traced all the way down to Florentine doctor and politician Galileo Bonaiuti, an ancestor of his, who lived over a century earlier with Galileo meaning ‘of Galilee’ (a region in the Levante) and he fathered three illegitimate children with Marina Gamba, with both his daughters eventually joining a convent out of necessity.

Although he initially entered the University of Pisa in 1580 looking for a medical degree he gained a keen interest in mathematics and physics on the way to shift track in these pursuits, publishing a work on a hydrostatic balance he invented himself, as well as studying design before he was appointed an instructor at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence in 1588.

A year later, he earned the chair of mathematics in Pisa and a further three years on he moved over to the University of Padua to teach geometry, astronomy and mechanics until 1610 while making significant discoveries in fundamental research, including kinematics of motion and astronomy, and applied science on the side.

He invented the thermoscope and various military compasses while he contributed greatly to the field of (observational) astronomy by way of telescopic (he fashioned his own telescope on vague descriptions of Hans Lipperhey’s original instrument) confirmation of the phases of Venus and analysis of the moon’s craters and sunspots as well as observation of the four largest satellites of Jupiter and the Saturn’s rings.

Yet, him advocating the Copernican Heliocentrism (namely that the Earth rotates daily and revolves round the Sun) brought him at odds with quarters of the Catholic Church and some astronomers with an investigation of the Roman Inquisition ruling that the concept and model in question was foolish, absurd and heretical as it contradicted the Holy Scripture (1616).

Having kept a distance from the matter for over a decade, Galileo came out to publish the “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” in 1632 that, albeit sanctioned by both the new Pope and the Inquisition, eventually came across the wrong way as an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and advocating the Copernican heliocentrism that drew a wider friction with the church.

He was trialled in Rome from February through to July 1633 where the Roman Inquisition ruled that “he was vehemently suspect of heresy” (though never formally charged with heresy), sentenced to formal imprisonment and that his book was banned.

Galileo was forced to spend the rest of his life under house arrest during which time he worked up the renowned book titled “Two New Sciences,” published in Holland (1638) to evade censorship, on Kinematics and Strength of Materials that was highly praised later by Albert Einstein among others.

Where does the name Algebra come from?

The name Algebra comes from the Arabic al-jabr (Romanized form) that means something like ‘reunion of broken parts’ out of great Persian polymath Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi’s (c.780-850 AD) work titled “The Science of Restoring and Balancing.”

Isaac Newton’s astronomical calculation of Jesus’s birth

Renowned English polymath Isaac Newton, among the greatest minds to have walked the earth, calculated astronomically the birth of Jesus down to 14 Nisan, a ‘shifting’ Hebrew month of Assyrian origin, although which year is not mentioned.

Most definitely, that came to pass before 4 BC (by our reckoning) since Herod I (or the Great), a client king of Judea for the Romans, was dead by March of that year judging by the accounts of famed contemporary historian Josephus.

According to the gospels of both Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod and therefore likely somewhere between 7 and 5 BC for that matter.

Nisan (or Nissan) was a 30-day-long month that was the very first of spring and spread evenly around the first full moon on the 14th, which further coincided with the Hebrew Passover (Easter).

Therefore, if Jesus was born in either 5 or 7 BC, an odd year (by our reckoning) that is, then 14 Nisan would fall somewhere in late March but if in 6 BC, an even year (by our reckoning), that would fall towards mid April.

On top of that, he was consequently born on the day of Passover (Easter).

Actually, Nisan was the month of barley ripening and its name derives on Assyrian ‘Nisanu’ which is given in turn as originating from even earlier Sumerian ‘Nisag,’ the latter meaning ‘first fruits.’

Personally, yet, I feel instead that the second component ‘-an(u)’ has got to do with Anu (Assyrian) or An (Sumerian), the king sky god, so the name likely breaks down as Nis-an(u), an apparent aspect of his (likely associated with agriculture).

PS There has got to be said that Jesus is not a historically attested character which spells that whether he ever existed is questionable and a matter of endless debate.