Construindo o laço do planeta marte em relação às estrelas distantes no sistema copernicano

O presente trabalho visa apresentar uma proposta de construção aproximada do movimento de Marte, que gera para um observador na Terra um formato de laço em relação às estrelas distantes na perspectiva do sistema copernicano. Para tal, utilizaremos o conhecido software GeoGebra. Crescendo consideravelmente, o software está sempre sendo atualizado e chega a reunir fóruns e grupos, contando em sua plataforma com uma gigantesca variedade de atividades para a matemática e a ciência. Dentre as muitas possibilidades, o modelo que escolhemos nos gerará um cenário para se pensar sobre a história das ideias envolvidas. Acreditamos que por intermédio de trabalhos deste tipo é possível promover uma discussão mais ampla e interdisciplinar sobre os conceitos que utilizamos, indo além dos brevíssimos recortes apresentados em livros didáticos. The present work aims to present a proposal for an approximate construction of the Mars movement, which generates for an observer on Earth a loop shape in relation to distant stars in the perspective of the Copernican system. For this, we will use the well-known GeoGebra software. Growing considerably, the software is always being updated and comes to gather forums and groups, counting on its platform a huge variety of activities for mathematics and science. Among the many possibilities, the model we choose will provide us with a scenario to think about the history of the ideas involved. We believe that through works of this type it is possible to promote a broader and interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts we use, going beyond the very brief cutouts presented in textbooks.

Alfredo Dinis, S.J., A Jesuit against Galileo? The strange case of Giovanni Battista Riccioli Cosmology, ed. Álvaro Balsas, S.J. & Ricardo Barroso Batista (Braga: Universidade católica portuguesa, 2017). xxiii + 364 pp. ISBN: 9789726972822 (Print); 9789726972839 (eBook). Aviva Rothman. The pursuit of harmony. Kepler on cosmos, confession, and community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017). viii + 355 pp. ISBN: 9780226497020.

This chapter focuses on the works of Alfredo Dinis and Aviva Rothman. Giovanni Battista Riccioli's principal work, Almagestum novum (1651), so called to indicate a replacement of Ptolemy's classic text, presents much valuable quantitative information, often in tabular form, which astronomers of all religious persuasions found useful. It also contains 49 arguments pro and 77 contra the Copernican system. Much of the late Alfredo Dinis's posthumous book analyses Riccioli's 126 arguments in an endeavour to judge whether they hid a closet Copernican. Meanwhile, little is said by Aviva Rothman about Johannes Kepler's achievements in astronomy. Instead she places much of his work, thought, and aspiration under the concept of harmony. This leitmotiv carries her a long way through Kepler's religious ideas.

How to Make the Earth Orbit the Sun in 1614

In 1614 the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner and his student, Johann Georg Locher, proposed a physical mechanism to explain how the Earth could orbit the sun. An orbit, they said, is a perpetual fall. They proposed this despite the fact that they rejected the Copernican system, citing problems with falling bodies and the sizes of stars under that system. In 1651 and again in 1680, Jesuit writers Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Athanasius Kircher, respectively, considered and rejected outright this idea of an orbit as a perpetual fall. Thus this important concept of an orbit was proposed, considered, and rejected well before Isaac Newton would use an entirely different physics to make the idea that an orbit is a perpetual fall the common way of envisioning and explaining orbits.

A new Physics to support the Copernican system. Gleanings from Galileo's works

Galileo's support to the Copernican theory was decisive for the revolutionary astronomical discoveries he achieved in 1610. We trace the origins of Galileo's conversion to the Copernican theory, discussing in particular the Dialogo de Cecco di Ronchitti da Bruzene in perpuosito de La Stella Nuova. Later developments of Galileo's works are briefly treated.

The Tuscan Artist

In The Areopagitica, his most important work of prose, John Milton mentions Galileo as the illustrious martyr who fought for the freedom of thought. The name of the great scientist is repeated several times in the English poet's epic masterpiece: Paradise Lost. In three different passages of the poem, Milton in fact celebrates the "Tuscan Artist" and his crucial achievements in astronomy. Nevertheless, in a subsequent passage, the poet addresses the Copernican issue without openly defending the heliocentric theory confirmed by Galileo's discoveries. In fact, he neither embraces the Copernican system nor the Ptolemaic one, but instead compares them, following a dialectic method where one cannot fail to notice an echo of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the two Chief World Systems. Milton's literary work presents images of astronomy at that time, thus offering a valuable historical example of scientific communication through art.