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Re: historical astronomy question



Jim Green wrote:

Why does it mater to whom when Galeleo might or might
not have seen a transit of any of the planets????

Whether or not Galileo saw the transit probably matters as little as
whether Copernicus on his death bed read Ossiander's Preface to _De
Revolutionibus_, or whether Ole Roemer realized the implications of his
discovering the finite speed of light.

It's the events that surround these questions, rather than the answers,
that are of scientific and historical interest.

But sometimes these kinds of questions provide the spark to learn about
such events, for students as well as phys-l subscribers.

Rick Strickert
URS Radian
Austin, TX