Operations of the Geometric and Military Compass, 1606

by Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei, Operations Of The Geometric And Military Compass

Paperback

First published December 31, 1978

About the author

Galileo Galilei was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science." The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied by Galileo as the subject of kinematics. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, named the Galilean moons in his honour, and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, improving compass design.

Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime. The geocentric view had been dominant since the time of Aristotle, and the controversy engendered by Galileo's presentation of heliocentrism as proven fact resulted in the Catholic Church's prohibiting its advocacy as empirically proven fact, because it was not empirically proven at the time and was contrary to the literal meaning of Scripture. Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentrism and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Galileo is of course a hero to people that respect the process of scientific inquiry and evaluation. It was a great triumph of the human race when superstition and the blind following of imposed dogma was replaced by the organized gathering of facts and the reaching of logical conclusions. This change made possible the great scientific and technical achievements that created the modern world. Despite his great achievements, Galileo was forced to recant his findings and placed under a mild form of house arrest by the Catholic Church.
When Galileo’s achievements are taught, his inventions are rarely mentioned due to the giant shadow of the Catholic Church forcing him to recant. This book is a description of his invention of a geometric and military compass that allowed for rapid and accurate computations of proportions, trigonometry and mathematical computations such as cube roots. While used for many things, the two primary ones were in surveying and military gunnery.
The first section is a description of how the compass works in general and the second section is a series of short papers describing specific uses that were written by Galileo. The book is interesting, for it describes the device very well and gives the reader several insights into the thought processes of Galileo. He was an incredibly talented man that did so much to turn society from superstition to mathematical rigor.