Galileo Galilei: Geometric Military Compass
Galileo Galilei
Group #3
Section: ME 333-A
Dr. Bednarz
Justin Weaver - Geometric Military Compass
Alec Brown - Pendulum Clock
Hamad Alkandari - Telescope
Abdulmajeed Almutairi - Thermoscope
Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Born on February 15, 1564, Galileo was most known for his feats in astronomy and in advancing the scientific revolution of the 16th century. He was a big supporter of Copernican theory which states the sun is the center of the solar system. This theory was revolutionary and contradicted the previously considered correct theory of the time. Thus Galileo was criticized heavily by the church for his beliefs. Galileo has also written many books and articles …show more content…
on his ideas and theories. For his many accomplishments, Galileo has been dubbed the father of “observational astronomy,” “modern physics,” and “modern science.” Galileo’s work in astronomy was extensive, and he even has four satellite moons around Jupiter named after him, the Galilean moons. Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy and considered becoming a priest before attending the University of Pisa for a medical degree. One day studying as a medical student, Galileo noticed a chandelier swinging back and forth, and noted that the sweeping chandelier took the same amount of time to swing back and forth no matter how far it had swung. This instance helped sparked the idea that maybe Galileo should focus on mathematics instead of the medical field. Reluctantly, his father allowed him to switch his studies to mathematics and natural philosophy instead of a medicine. Galileo seemed to have a knack for inventing new things, and invented or helped to create the foundation for many important devices or theories. Four of his main inventions include the thermoscope, a sector or military compass, a pendulum clock, and a telescope. One of Galileo’s most successful inventions was the geometric military compass, otherwise known as a sector. Galileo was involved in the Accademia Delia, which was located in Padua. The Accademia Delia was a program devised to teach mathematics to young nobleman who were training for a career in the military. During this time teaching in Padua, Galileo invented the geometric compass. The need for this instrument arose out of the military field of the time. The military field was searching for a device that could perform arithmetic calculations and geometric operations with ease on the battlefield. This device would be applied to cannons specifically, where the gunner would use the compass to measure the elevation of the cannon’s barrel. Thus, in 1597 Galileo designed his compass, and it had more use than just finding the elevation of a cannon’s barrel. Galileo’s sector consisted of two arms of equal length attached to a joint. At the joint there was a string attached to weight which could be moved, and inside the two arms was a rounded bar. The two arms could move over the bar. Galileo’s sector works similar to a calculator. The sector had many different markings and denominations on each part. Galileo’s version included arithmetic, geometric, stereometric, metallic, polygraphic, and tetragonic lines. The device could help calculate things like interest, square and cube roots, area and volume, and it could even help draw polygons, measure gauges, and survey a territory. To use the sector one would simply collapse or open the legs of the device to measure a multitude of things. The lines on the sector are also used to measure and gauge lengths, angles, and widths. The joint at the top is also a representation of a center of a circle, so if one would like to measure the angle of an object the center of the joint would be lined up with the point. During the period of 1598 to 1604, Galileo marketed his device to the world, and even had some royalty learn to use his compass.
The device was a success, and Galileo earned quite a profit from selling the device. In 1606, to help sell the device, Galileo published a book called “Le operation del compass geometric e militate.” He would sell the book alongside each compass that he made. The book described over 40 operations that could be calculated by the device. Galileo’s device also had quite the longevity of use. He invented the device at the end of the 16th century and was still the instrument of choice until the nineteenth century when slide rules became more prevalent. Galileo’s hardest problem he had to overcome with making the sector was not in the creation of the device, but other people trying to claim it as their own. One of his student’s even tried to claim ownership by publishing a manual on how to use the …show more content…
sector. Overall, Galileo’s sector was a famous and widely used device around the world. It’s longevity and varied uses assured its existence for quite some time. Besides granting Galileo with wealth, the compass also helped him to create a long lasting legacy as a prolific and innovative inventor. While studying at the University of Pisa, Galileo observed the swinging motion of a lamp inside of the cathedral. The swinging motion of the lamp fascinated him, as the current Aristotelian physics could not explain the phenomenon. Based on Aristotelian physics, objects fell due to a them wanting to be in their natural place. With this current ideology, the speed at which objects fell was directly proportional to their weight. When Galileo watched the swinging motion of the lamp, he decided to take a quantitative approach as to why it swung. This would help pave the way towards the more quantitative theories that Newton produced. Eventually in 1602, Galileo revisited the observations that he made and began to investigate the motion of pendulums. During his investigations Galileo made many claims about the properties of pendulums, such as the period being independent of the amplitude. He also claimed that the period was independent of the weight at the end, and the period of oscillation is determined by the length of the pendulum. Most importantly, Galileo determined that pendulums were nearly isochronous, meaning that their frequency was independent of their amplitude. He made these claims after a series of experiments involving different lengths, masses, and amplitudes of pendulums. Pendulums being isochronous, or at least nearly isochronous, meant that they could be used to measure time intervals. While Galileo was 77 years old, he tried to come up with a practical use of pendulums. He tried to figure out a way to make clocks more accurate using pendulums, but was not successful. He couldn't further his research at this point due to him having gone blind. Eventually Galileo's research lead to the creation of metronomes and pendulum clocks. Metronomes are used to measure equal time intervals, with their main use being musicians. Pendulum clocks replaced the water based clocks as the pendulums were able to measure the time with varying accuracy. Galileo's research helped to further these inventions and provided a base for other inventors to start from. In 1609 Galileo developed a telescope and presented it to dealers who used it to spot ships and gave him salary to manufacture many such telescopes for him. He did not compromise on that instead he decided to build an astronomical telescope. In March 1610 he published a booklet “The Starry Messenger” revealing about his discoveries that moon surface is not flat and smooth, but a sphere with mountains and crater. He found Venus has phases like moon which proves that it rotated around the sun. He also discovered that Jupiter has revolving moons which don’t revolve around the earth. Galilei based his optical instrument on spyglasses developed the previous year by the Dutch spectacle makers. Galileo is widely credited with being the first to seriously study the heavens with a telescope. His telescope was a very simple design but you must remember that very little was understood about optics around 1600. Certainly there was no clear understanding of the principals of optical design that we have today. A telescope can be of two types depending upon its working i.e. refracting or reflecting. The earlier telescopes were Galilean. A Galilean has a big positive objective lens in the front, with a small negative eyepiece. They produce an erect magnified image. They have a small field of view due to which they are not used any more. Whereas a Keplerian telescope has the same Objective but it has a positive eyepiece lens. They produce an inverted up-side-down image. They have a much larger field. Most spotting telescopes are Keplerian with an additional erecting lens. According to Kevin Trainingen, Galileo invented the thermoscope in 1592.
He was thinking about measuring the temperature of a body somehow. He made the thermoscope by getting a glass with wine. Second, an open tune connected to a glass bulb. That was how simple it was. How his experiment worked, he put his hand on the glass bulb in order to heat the air in side of it. After he put his hand heated the air, the air expands into the tube to the glass of wine. He took his hand away from the bulb to cool it down again. He found that the air came back to the bulb and the wine came into the tube. Galileo found that the thermoscope was stable at that moment. After he found at the stable moment, he marked it. However, he asked a patient to heat the thermoscope. Again the air expanded to the glass. After the air had been expanded, the patient stopped heating the bulb. At that moment while the air came to the bulb and the wine had going up the tube, it past the stabled moment that Galileo marked. He knew that there were something happened. So He was been able to know if the temperature was higher or lower for someone by his
thermoscope. After he made his air temperature as some people call it, people has been made the thermometer which can find the specific temperature for a body. His simple thermoscope had been develops by him and other people. The made it more specific in reading temperature of a body than that just knowing that someone’s temperature is higher than the normal one or lower than the normal.In the end, Galileo Galilei died in January 8, 1642, Arcentri, Italy. Overall, Galileo can be considered one of mankind’s most extraordinary and prolific inventors. The thermoscope, telescope, geometric compass, and pendulum research were all revolutionary devices and ideas during his time period. The devices and research also logically helped solve many of the existing problems of the time. Galileo’s devices not only impacted many people around the world, but also helped pave the way for new inventors. This impact can even be seen today where newer inventions and principles are named after Galileo. For example, the Galileo spacecraft, the Galileo global satellite navigation system, and Galilean transformation. Truly, only an extraordinary and skilled inventor could leave such an impactful and long lasting legacy on the scientific community.
References:
1. Galileo and the Modern World. Rufus Suter. The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Aug., 1940), pp. 168-171
2. Galileo. E. N. da C. Andrade. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Dec., 1964), pp. 120-130
3. "Galileo's Compass - History of an Invention." Galileo's Compass - History of an Invention. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
4. Galileo on the Isochrony of the Pendulum. Piero Ariotti Isis, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 1968), pp. 414-426
5. Galileo. Charles S. Slichter. American Scientist, Vol. 31, No. 2 (APRIL, 1943), pp. 168-176
6. "Galileo IV", by Edward Singleton Holden in Popular Science Monthly Volume 67, June 1905
7. “Galileo”, The New Student's Reference Work, Chicago: F.E. Compton and Co., 1914.
8. Loyson, Peter. "Galilean Thermometer Not So Galilean." Journal Of Chemical Education 89.9 (2012): 1095-1096. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
9. ”The Galileo Project | Galileo | Introduction." The Galileo Project | Galileo | Introduction. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
10. ”Thermoscope." YouTube. Kelvin Trainingen, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
Images:
[1] http://world-history.nmhblogs.org/files/2012/12/Galileo.jpg
[2] http://chsi.harvard.edu/images/gali_sector.jpg
[3] http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/G/GalileoG.html
[4] http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/pendulum.htm
[6] http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/projects/DEPT1_Valleriani-GalileoEngineer/MV_GE_Col_Img_03.jpg
[7] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/59922/The-Galileo-spacecraft-and-its-Inertial-Upper-Stage-booster-leaving
Group #3
Section: ME 333-A
Dr. Bednarz
Justin Weaver - Geometric Military Compass
Alec Brown - Pendulum Clock
Hamad Alkandari - Telescope
Abdulmajeed Almutairi - Thermoscope
Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Born on February 15, 1564, Galileo was most known for his feats in astronomy and in advancing the scientific revolution of the 16th century. He was a big supporter of Copernican theory which states the sun is the center of the solar system. This theory was revolutionary and contradicted the previously considered correct theory of the time. Thus Galileo was criticized heavily by the church for his beliefs. Galileo has also written many books and articles …show more content…
on his ideas and theories. For his many accomplishments, Galileo has been dubbed the father of “observational astronomy,” “modern physics,” and “modern science.” Galileo’s work in astronomy was extensive, and he even has four satellite moons around Jupiter named after him, the Galilean moons. Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy and considered becoming a priest before attending the University of Pisa for a medical degree. One day studying as a medical student, Galileo noticed a chandelier swinging back and forth, and noted that the sweeping chandelier took the same amount of time to swing back and forth no matter how far it had swung. This instance helped sparked the idea that maybe Galileo should focus on mathematics instead of the medical field. Reluctantly, his father allowed him to switch his studies to mathematics and natural philosophy instead of a medicine. Galileo seemed to have a knack for inventing new things, and invented or helped to create the foundation for many important devices or theories. Four of his main inventions include the thermoscope, a sector or military compass, a pendulum clock, and a telescope. One of Galileo’s most successful inventions was the geometric military compass, otherwise known as a sector. Galileo was involved in the Accademia Delia, which was located in Padua. The Accademia Delia was a program devised to teach mathematics to young nobleman who were training for a career in the military. During this time teaching in Padua, Galileo invented the geometric compass. The need for this instrument arose out of the military field of the time. The military field was searching for a device that could perform arithmetic calculations and geometric operations with ease on the battlefield. This device would be applied to cannons specifically, where the gunner would use the compass to measure the elevation of the cannon’s barrel. Thus, in 1597 Galileo designed his compass, and it had more use than just finding the elevation of a cannon’s barrel. Galileo’s sector consisted of two arms of equal length attached to a joint. At the joint there was a string attached to weight which could be moved, and inside the two arms was a rounded bar. The two arms could move over the bar. Galileo’s sector works similar to a calculator. The sector had many different markings and denominations on each part. Galileo’s version included arithmetic, geometric, stereometric, metallic, polygraphic, and tetragonic lines. The device could help calculate things like interest, square and cube roots, area and volume, and it could even help draw polygons, measure gauges, and survey a territory. To use the sector one would simply collapse or open the legs of the device to measure a multitude of things. The lines on the sector are also used to measure and gauge lengths, angles, and widths. The joint at the top is also a representation of a center of a circle, so if one would like to measure the angle of an object the center of the joint would be lined up with the point. During the period of 1598 to 1604, Galileo marketed his device to the world, and even had some royalty learn to use his compass.
The device was a success, and Galileo earned quite a profit from selling the device. In 1606, to help sell the device, Galileo published a book called “Le operation del compass geometric e militate.” He would sell the book alongside each compass that he made. The book described over 40 operations that could be calculated by the device. Galileo’s device also had quite the longevity of use. He invented the device at the end of the 16th century and was still the instrument of choice until the nineteenth century when slide rules became more prevalent. Galileo’s hardest problem he had to overcome with making the sector was not in the creation of the device, but other people trying to claim it as their own. One of his student’s even tried to claim ownership by publishing a manual on how to use the …show more content…
sector. Overall, Galileo’s sector was a famous and widely used device around the world. It’s longevity and varied uses assured its existence for quite some time. Besides granting Galileo with wealth, the compass also helped him to create a long lasting legacy as a prolific and innovative inventor. While studying at the University of Pisa, Galileo observed the swinging motion of a lamp inside of the cathedral. The swinging motion of the lamp fascinated him, as the current Aristotelian physics could not explain the phenomenon. Based on Aristotelian physics, objects fell due to a them wanting to be in their natural place. With this current ideology, the speed at which objects fell was directly proportional to their weight. When Galileo watched the swinging motion of the lamp, he decided to take a quantitative approach as to why it swung. This would help pave the way towards the more quantitative theories that Newton produced. Eventually in 1602, Galileo revisited the observations that he made and began to investigate the motion of pendulums. During his investigations Galileo made many claims about the properties of pendulums, such as the period being independent of the amplitude. He also claimed that the period was independent of the weight at the end, and the period of oscillation is determined by the length of the pendulum. Most importantly, Galileo determined that pendulums were nearly isochronous, meaning that their frequency was independent of their amplitude. He made these claims after a series of experiments involving different lengths, masses, and amplitudes of pendulums. Pendulums being isochronous, or at least nearly isochronous, meant that they could be used to measure time intervals. While Galileo was 77 years old, he tried to come up with a practical use of pendulums. He tried to figure out a way to make clocks more accurate using pendulums, but was not successful. He couldn't further his research at this point due to him having gone blind. Eventually Galileo's research lead to the creation of metronomes and pendulum clocks. Metronomes are used to measure equal time intervals, with their main use being musicians. Pendulum clocks replaced the water based clocks as the pendulums were able to measure the time with varying accuracy. Galileo's research helped to further these inventions and provided a base for other inventors to start from. In 1609 Galileo developed a telescope and presented it to dealers who used it to spot ships and gave him salary to manufacture many such telescopes for him. He did not compromise on that instead he decided to build an astronomical telescope. In March 1610 he published a booklet “The Starry Messenger” revealing about his discoveries that moon surface is not flat and smooth, but a sphere with mountains and crater. He found Venus has phases like moon which proves that it rotated around the sun. He also discovered that Jupiter has revolving moons which don’t revolve around the earth. Galilei based his optical instrument on spyglasses developed the previous year by the Dutch spectacle makers. Galileo is widely credited with being the first to seriously study the heavens with a telescope. His telescope was a very simple design but you must remember that very little was understood about optics around 1600. Certainly there was no clear understanding of the principals of optical design that we have today. A telescope can be of two types depending upon its working i.e. refracting or reflecting. The earlier telescopes were Galilean. A Galilean has a big positive objective lens in the front, with a small negative eyepiece. They produce an erect magnified image. They have a small field of view due to which they are not used any more. Whereas a Keplerian telescope has the same Objective but it has a positive eyepiece lens. They produce an inverted up-side-down image. They have a much larger field. Most spotting telescopes are Keplerian with an additional erecting lens. According to Kevin Trainingen, Galileo invented the thermoscope in 1592.
He was thinking about measuring the temperature of a body somehow. He made the thermoscope by getting a glass with wine. Second, an open tune connected to a glass bulb. That was how simple it was. How his experiment worked, he put his hand on the glass bulb in order to heat the air in side of it. After he put his hand heated the air, the air expands into the tube to the glass of wine. He took his hand away from the bulb to cool it down again. He found that the air came back to the bulb and the wine came into the tube. Galileo found that the thermoscope was stable at that moment. After he found at the stable moment, he marked it. However, he asked a patient to heat the thermoscope. Again the air expanded to the glass. After the air had been expanded, the patient stopped heating the bulb. At that moment while the air came to the bulb and the wine had going up the tube, it past the stabled moment that Galileo marked. He knew that there were something happened. So He was been able to know if the temperature was higher or lower for someone by his
thermoscope. After he made his air temperature as some people call it, people has been made the thermometer which can find the specific temperature for a body. His simple thermoscope had been develops by him and other people. The made it more specific in reading temperature of a body than that just knowing that someone’s temperature is higher than the normal one or lower than the normal.In the end, Galileo Galilei died in January 8, 1642, Arcentri, Italy. Overall, Galileo can be considered one of mankind’s most extraordinary and prolific inventors. The thermoscope, telescope, geometric compass, and pendulum research were all revolutionary devices and ideas during his time period. The devices and research also logically helped solve many of the existing problems of the time. Galileo’s devices not only impacted many people around the world, but also helped pave the way for new inventors. This impact can even be seen today where newer inventions and principles are named after Galileo. For example, the Galileo spacecraft, the Galileo global satellite navigation system, and Galilean transformation. Truly, only an extraordinary and skilled inventor could leave such an impactful and long lasting legacy on the scientific community.
References:
1. Galileo and the Modern World. Rufus Suter. The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Aug., 1940), pp. 168-171
2. Galileo. E. N. da C. Andrade. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Dec., 1964), pp. 120-130
3. "Galileo's Compass - History of an Invention." Galileo's Compass - History of an Invention. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
4. Galileo on the Isochrony of the Pendulum. Piero Ariotti Isis, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 1968), pp. 414-426
5. Galileo. Charles S. Slichter. American Scientist, Vol. 31, No. 2 (APRIL, 1943), pp. 168-176
6. "Galileo IV", by Edward Singleton Holden in Popular Science Monthly Volume 67, June 1905
7. “Galileo”, The New Student's Reference Work, Chicago: F.E. Compton and Co., 1914.
8. Loyson, Peter. "Galilean Thermometer Not So Galilean." Journal Of Chemical Education 89.9 (2012): 1095-1096. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
9. ”The Galileo Project | Galileo | Introduction." The Galileo Project | Galileo | Introduction. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
10. ”Thermoscope." YouTube. Kelvin Trainingen, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
Images:
[1] http://world-history.nmhblogs.org/files/2012/12/Galileo.jpg
[2] http://chsi.harvard.edu/images/gali_sector.jpg
[3] http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/G/GalileoG.html
[4] http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/pendulum.htm
[6] http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/projects/DEPT1_Valleriani-GalileoEngineer/MV_GE_Col_Img_03.jpg
[7] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/59922/The-Galileo-spacecraft-and-its-Inertial-Upper-Stage-booster-leaving