- Geminiano Montanari
Geminiano Montanari (
June 1 1633 -October 13 1687 ) was an Italian astronomer, lens-maker, and proponent of the experimental approach to science.He is best known for his observation, made around 1667, that the second brightest star (called
Algol in Arabic) in the constellation of Perseus varied in brightness. It is likely that others had observed this effect before, but Montanari was the first named astronomer to record it. The star's names in Arabic, Hebrew and other languages, all of which have a meaning of "ghoul " or "demon ", imply that its unusual behaviour had long been recognised. In the Western world, earlier observers may have been inhibited from publishing by the insistence of the Christian church that theuniverse was immutable.Montanari was born in
Modena , studiedlaw inFlorence , and graduated from theUniversity of Salzburg . In 1662 or 1663 he moved toBologna , where he drew an accurate map of theMoon using anocular micrometer of his own making. He also made observations oncapillarity and other problems instatics , and suggested that theviscosity of a liquid depended on the shape of itsmolecule s. In 1669 he succeeded Giovanni Cassini as astronomy teacher at theobservatory of Panzano, near Modena, where one of his duties was to compile an astrologicalalmanac . He did so in 1665, but perpetrated a deliberate hoax by writing the almanac entirely at random, to show that predictions made by chance were as likely to be fulfilled as those made by astrology. In the period shortly afterGalileo Galilei , experimentalists like Montanari were engaged in a battle against the more mystical views ofscientists such asDonato Rossetti .On
21 March 1676 Montanari reported a sighting of acomet toEdmund Halley .In 1679 Montanari moved to a teaching post in
Padua , but almost all records of this period of his life have been lost. A letter survives from 1682 recording a sighting ofHalley's Comet . He also wrote oneconomics , observing that demand for a particular commodity was fixed, and making comments on coinage and the value of money (1683).A crater on the Moon, at 45.8S, 20.6W, is named after him.
Publications
*"De motionibus naturalibus a gravitate pendentibus" (1667)
*"Pensieri fisico-matematici" (1667)
*"La Livella Diottrica" (The Spirit Level) (1674)
*"Trattato mercantile delle monete" (1680)External links
* [http://www.bo.astro.it/dip/Museum/english/sto1_10.html "The impact of Galilean culture - From Bonaventura Cavalieri to Gian Domenico Cassini", Bologna University Department of Astronomy 2004-4-10]
* [http://www.yourpharmacydeals.com/ Gian Domen 2006]
*worldcat id|lccn-nr96-28730References
*"The Passions of the Atoms. Montanari and Rossetti: A Polemic Between Followers of Galileo" by Susana Gomez Lopez, Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 1997.
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