Galileo's invention of the astronomical telescope and his remarkable discoveries: moons, stars and a new planet.”

Prof David Jamieson

School of Physics, University of Melbourne

Abstract:
The year 2009 has been declared the international year of astronomy to commemorate and celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first time Galileo turned his newly invented telescope to the heavens.  This lecture looks at Galileo's technological breakthrough with the invention of his astronomical telescope and investigates the avalanche of new discoveries and knowledge that it produced.  Some of these discoveries are well known like the discovery of the moons of Jupiter and the lunar landscape.  But there is a surprise drawn from the pages of Galileo's logbooks of 1612 and 1613.  He notes the position of a "fixed star" that does not exist in any star chart because it is the planet Neptune which Galileo observed 234 years before its official discovery.  Did he know this "fixed star" was a planet? His notes suggest he saw Neptune move and computer simulations show the precision of his observations.  This lecture will review the evidence.

Speaker Profile

David Jamieson is Professor of Physics and Head of the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne. In 1996-2007 he was the Director of the Microanalytical Research Centre, a research group with major interests in the fields of nano-technology, especially quantum computer technology and microanalysis.

In addition to his professional activities at the University of Melbourne has have also served as the Vice President (2003-4) and President (2005-6) of the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP). He chaired a working group coordinating the AIP activities for the Einstein International Year of Physics in 2005.

David is also very interested in outreach activities that present physics to the general public.  Since 1990 he has organised and presented many lectures to a wide audience, including the "July Lectures in Physics" on fundamental topics.