Geminiano Montanari.

Geminiano Montanari (June 1, 1633-October 13, 1687) was an Italian astronomer, lens-maker, and proponent of the experimental approach to science. Download high resolution version (1000x1275, 202 KB) This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Download high resolution version (1000x1275, 202 KB) This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... June 1 is the 152nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (153rd in leap years), with 213 days remaining. ... Events February 13 - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition. ... October 13 is the 286th day of the year (287th in leap years). ... Events March 19 - The men under explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle murder him while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River. ... Astrology: the study of the positions of the celestial objects relative to the Earth and how these positions affect happenings on the lives of cultures, nations and the natural environment. ... A lens is: a part of the eye an optical device that may be used in a camera or in a telescope; see lens (optics) or Category:Lenses. ...

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 the universe was immutable. // Events January 20 - Poland cedes Kyiv, Smolensk, and eastern Ukraine to Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo that put a final end to the Deluge, and Poland lost its status as a Central European power. ... ALGOL (short for ALGOrithmic Language) is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in the mid 1950s which became the de facto standard way to report algorithms in print for almost the next 30 years. ... Arabic (; , less formally, ) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... Perseus is a northern constellation, named after the Greek hero who slew the monster Medusa. ... Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than 6 million people, mainly in Israel, the West Bank, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ... See also: Timeline of Christianity Beliefs Jesus crucifixion as portrayed by Diego Velázquez. ... The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. ...

Montanari was born in Modena, studied law in Florence, and graduated from the University of Salzburg. In 1662 or 1663 he moved to Bologna, where he drew an accurate map of the Moon using an ocular micrometer of his own making. He also made observations on capillarity and other problems in statics, and suggested that the viscosity of a liquid depended on the shape of its molecules. In 1669 he succeeded Giovanni Cassini as astronomy teacher at the observatory of Panzano, near Modena, where one of his duties was to compile an astrological almanac. 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 after Galileo Galilei, experimentalists like Montanari were engaged in a battle against the more mystical views of scientists such as Donato Rossetti. Modena (Mòdna in Modenese dialect) is a city and a province on the south side of the Po valley, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Law Law topics overview List of areas of law List of legal topics List of legal terms List of jurists List of legal abbreviations List of case law lists List of law firms Further reading Cheyenne Way: Conflict & Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence, Karl... Founded 59 BC as Florentia Region Tuscany Mayor Leonardo Domenici (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  102 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 356,000 almost 500,000 3,453/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Latitude Longitude 43°47 N 11°15 E www. ... The University of Salzburg, or Paris Londron University after its founder, the Prince Archbishop Paris Londron, is located in the Austrian city of Salzburg, home of Mozart. ... Events March 18 – Short-timed experiment of the first public buses holding 8 passengers begins in Paris May 3/May 2 - Catherine of Braganza marries Charles II of England – as part of the dowry, Portugal cedes Bombay and Tangier to England May 9 - Samuel Pepys witnessed a Punch and Judy... // Events Prix de Rome scholarship established for students of the arts. ... Bologna (from Latin Bononia, BulÃ¥ggna in the local dialect) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, between the Po River and the Apennines. ... Crust composition Oxygen 43% Silicon 21% Aluminium 10% Calcium 9% Iron 9% Magnesium 5% Titanium 2% Nickel 0. ... An ocular micrometer is a glass disk that fits in a microscope eyepiece that has a ruled scale, which is used to measure the size of magnified objects. ... Capillarity causes the part of the surface of a liquid in contact with a solid, to be either elevated above ( water), or depressed below ( mercury), the rest of the surface. ... Statics is the branch of physics that is concerned with physical systems that are in static equilibrium, that is, in a state where the relative positions of subsystems do not vary over time, or where components and structures are at rest under the action of external forces of equilibrium. ... The pitch drop experiment at the University of Queensland. ... A molecule is the smallest particle of a pure chemical substance that still retains its chemical composition and properties. ... // Events Samuel Pepys stopped writing his diary. ... Giovanni Domenico (Jean-Dominique) Cassini Giovanni Domenico Cassini (June 8, 1625 - September 14, 1712) was an Italian-French astronomer and engineer. ... Observatory of Strasbourg An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial and/or celestial events. ... An almanac (also spelled almanack, especially in Commonwealth English) is an annual publication containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar. ... Events March 4 - Start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. ... On January 7, 1610 Galileo discovered three of Jupiters four largest satellites (moons): Io, Europa, and Callisto. ...

On 21 March 1676 Montanari reported a sighting of a comet to Edmund Halley. March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). ... Events January 29 - Feodor III becomes Tsar of Russia First measurement of the speed of light, by Ole Rømer Bacons Rebellion Russo-Turkish Wars commence. ... Comet Hale-Bopp A comet is a small body in the solar system that orbits the sun and (at least occasionally) exhibits a coma (or atmosphere) and/or a tail — both due primarily to the effects of solar radiation upon the comets nucleus, which itself is a minor planet... Edmond 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 of Halley's comet. He also wrote on economics, observing that demand for a particular commodity was fixed, and making comments on coinage and the value of money (1683). Events January 24 - King Charles II of England disbands Parliament August 7 - The brigantine Le Griffon, which was commissioned by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes. ... Location within Italy Tronco Maestro Riviera: a pedestrian walk along a section of the inland waterway or naviglio interno of Padua The city of Padua (Lat. ... Events March 11 – Chelsea hospital for soldiers is founded in England May 6 - Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles. ... Comet Halley as taken with the Halley Multicolor Camera on the ESA Giotto mission. ... U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Daily analysis of economics in the news (UK focus) Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau...

A crater on the Moon, at 45.8S, 20.6W, is named after him. Montanari is a lunar crater. ...

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

• "The impact of Galilean culture - From Bonaventura Cavalieri to Gian Domenico Cassini", Bologna University Department of Astronomy 2004-4-10

References

• The Passions of the Atoms. Montanari and Rossetti: A Polemic Between Followers of Galileo by Susana Gomez Lopez, Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 1997.