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Galileo’s telescopes: Seeing is believing (2010)
’s Telescopes: Seeing is Believing Few events in history have proved as momentous as Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter. But would sharing his findings mean sharing his telescope? Four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was in a state of anxiety.
In the autumn, this began to happen – Thomas Harriot in England and Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in France saw the moons for themselves, but no one told Galileo. Now, when we hold enquiries into whether climate scientists have manipulated their statistics, or wait to hear if some new drug survives a controlled trial, we take scientific authority and objectivity for granted. Galileo in 1610 invited the world to look through his telescope, and at that moment, the idea of progress (up to then a concept peculiar to artists, mathematicians and anatomists) came of age.
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