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Galileo's Handwritten Notes Discovered in a Medieval Astronomy Text (science.org)

(Sunday March 01, 2026 @11:34AM (EditorDavid) from the and-yet-it-moves dept.)


In a library in Florence, Italy, historian Ivan Malara noticed handwritten notes on a book printed in the 1500s — and recognized the handwriting as Galileo's. The finding "promises [1]new insights into one of the most famous ideological transitions in the history of science ," writes Science magazine — since the book Galileo annotated was a reprint of Ptolemy's second-century work arguing that the earth was the center of the universe.

> Galileo's notes, perhaps written around 1590, or roughly 2 decades before his groundbreaking telescope observations of the Moon and Jupiter, reveal someone who both revered and critically dissected Ptolemy's work. And they imply, Malara argues, that Galileo ultimately broke with Ptolemy's cosmos because his mastery of the traditional paradigm's reasoning convinced him that a heliocentric [sun-centered] system would better fulfill Ptolemy's own mathematical logic.



[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/galileo-s-handwritten-notes-found-ancient-astronomy-text



No one is right about everything (Score:4, Insightful)

by rmdingler ( 1955220 )

Science and new discoveries are rife with the tenet of assuming nothing done previously is canonic, but using the prior work to expand knowledge and understanding.

Re: (Score:1)

by YetanotherUID ( 4004939 )

What a world bereft of insight we live in when a platitude as banal as this is universally modded as "insightful."

Re: (Score:2)

by sound+vision ( 884283 )

This "platitude" is the thrust of the article you chose to open, read, and reply to the comments on. What were you expecting to find here? Whatever you're looking for is probably on Facebook.

Re: (Score:2)

by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 )

It's arguably that specific position that gets you 'science' rather than something else. If there's insufficient interest in prior work or too much zeal for sticking it to the orthodoxy, man, you never actually get a research program; just individual theories advanced in relative isolation, often specifically tied to their creator and a few students, but just abandoned for the next individual theory rather than ever being worked up hard enough for the cracks to start to show. And, of course, if you declare

This fake historical garbage again? (Score:2)

by trelanexiph ( 605826 )

Galileo didn't discover heliocentrism.

1517 Martin Luther publishes the Ninety-Five Theses. The Protestant Reformation begins decades before Galileo’s conflict and reshapes the religious and political environment of Europe.

1543 Nicolaus Copernicus, a canon lawyer and church administrator, publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).

This work introduces the mathematical heliocentric model. The term “Copernican system” comes from this publication

Re: (Score:2)

by trelanexiph ( 605826 )

A fake version of history surrounding "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" is the basis for the anime "Orb".

Catholic priests, monks, or nuns also invented or discovered genetics, the primordial atom (Which was written off as an effort to invent creation/intelligent design as "the Big Bang"), the pendulum clock, the electric motor, the electric battery, and for some reason the bulletproof vest, among dozens of other inventions that make life possible.

Ok fine, while the Church was at it, we cured Malaria sav

Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons. Some
military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people
who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks.
Since in those days, only Western Electric made "data sets" (modems) the
problems of terminology were all Bell System. We used to struggle with
written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people
(most phones were rotary then.) Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering
types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were
the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote
the "pound sign." Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out. It
never really caught on.