Astronomy Lesson 3
 

Mithos enters the Astronomy Classroom and takes the front seat like always "Hello Professor, how are you? Im so glad we have you with us!" Mithos smiled and took out his quill, parchment and ink. Mithos couldn't wait for the lesson to start.

Mithos sees Ashlie's sad mood and smiles 'Of the most people, Ashlie sure is the one that is going to miss the Professors the most specially Professor Rae... She hasn't had much luck lately. First the Agining Potion' he thought and laughed a little 'and now her fav teacher has been replaced' he thinks. Mithos looks around of the classroom with no thoughts. He looks at Ashlie and smiles again.

Nadia watched Ashlie come inside the room, already there since - (*checks watch*) an hour before talking with Anelreas. She was surprised to see the reddishness of her eyes though she could guess which might be the reason for them all too quickly. She didn't dare comment on it any further to avoid episodes and to allow the class to continue its course.

Selena comes in the classroom and takes a seat

::Erica enters the classroom, grabs a lollipop, and takes a seat in what looks like a daze. The events of earlier were fresh in her mind and because of that, she had to force herself to come to class. At least they didn't take Professor Dainsie, she thought.::

Rosa came into the classroom amazed of what'd happened and glad that there was still astronomy. She hadn't known any of them well, but she was mad they'd been replaced this way. and she imagined how older students who knew them for longer felt.

Serena grabs a blueberry lolly and takes her regular seat waiting for class to start.

Anelreas ascended into the room and took a seat in the back. Her eyes seemed droopy. Folding her arms in front of her on the table, she settled her head inside. She was just going to 'rest her eyes' for a few moments before the Professor started the lesson.

Francis comes into the classroom with a sullen look. It certainly seems like she hasn't slept at all. Sighing, she smiles weakly at Ashlie and Mithos. Taking her seat somewhat next to them, she takes out parchment and quill. Looking at the Professor with a weak smile, she tries to focus on the upcoming class.

kasandra walkewd in and sat down.

Ivana walks in to the class and finds her friends.She takes a sit beside Francis."Hi!"she said. then she pulls out some parchments,quills and inks.

kass looked around and noticed lee walked in
"over here lee" she said motioning him

"its not all that confusing" she said "but ya thank go we do have a normal teacher"

Drusilla walks into Astronomy classroom. Whole school seems to have gone crazy, she thought, but no wonder. Several girls have been crying as she notices Ashlie, Ravenclaw Prefect, also has. Now was that suitable for a Prefect, to cry, she thought. Professor Dainsie will remove every-one´s thouhts from Earth... Remembers last lessons subject. Well, at least from Hogwarts and this Ministry mess.

ya your right" she said "what did i do...she didn't say anything bout passing notes"

"ahh i don't care" she said "for all i give she can do watever she wants to me..i'll just do something 10% worse"

kasandra laughed..."ya your right"

Evy walked in the room and noticed Lee, who was seated next to a Ravenclaw girl she had never seen before.

'Hello there!'

Everyone's looking sad, she tought. Must be because of all these ministry officials taking the place of the teachers. At least we still have professor Dae, and I hope Astronomy will be as fun as usual.

Evy smiled shyly.

"Not so bad. I wish we could have our real teachers back though... And you, what have you been up to lately?"

Alicia walks up to the astronomy tower and takes a seat right by one of the large window panes. She takes out her book, notebook, and quills and waits for the leson to begin.

"Could we learn about Jupiter?" Xavier asks. "It's wuite an interesting topic."

Serena raised her hand.

If you mean people, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton are two I'm interested in, and more recently Edwin Powell Hubble.

Francis raised her hand. "Copernicus? Ptolomeo?... Or some of the philosophers that talked about life elsewhere and how life came about (i.e. cosmic rays)?"

*raises hand all too enthusiastically* Galileo Galilei! I mean, I already read some of his thoughts but there can never be enough to learn. Another famous figures are Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Copérnico, Juan Kepler... oh and Lippershey! By the way, I am curious: Is it true that the first to study the stars were not the humans but the centaurs (=P)? They do have a great history concerning them but I'm not sure it is more than a rumour or myth."

=P

Francis raised her hand. "He was born in what used to be known as Frauenburg, Poland.. which is now known as Frombork, Poland"

*raise hand* He developed a heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory of the solar system, as oppossed to the geocentric theory (Earth as te centre of the universe), published in a form detailed enough to make it scientifically useful in 1543. He also replaced Ptolemy's equant circles with epicycles. This is the main source of the statement that his system had even more epicycles than Ptolemy's. One of the steps to explain his theory was to prove that all the planets move along orbits whose center is the Sun, therefore the Sun is the center of the World... Well, Copernicus was never certain whether the Sun moved or not, claiming that the center of the World is 'in the Sun, or near it.'

"... only thing left is to explain the theory now, right? I mean, how he managed to prove that it was the earth the one that moved and not the sun. The history was prett much covered =P"

Zekke nodded at Nadia's answer and quietly scrawled some notes in his notebook.

Astronomy was terribly fascinating for him, but for some reason, his enthusiasm for classes had all but died. In fact, he had been fighting against a wave of heaviness in his mind and heart for the last several days.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

Zekke had scrawled over a page of notes as he listened to everyone speaking, but when he glanced down at his notebook, he realized that he had written a pageful of anything BUT notes.

The tension in the room - like the tension throughout the school - was so thick that he could feel it seeping into his pores. His own worries and last bout of illness had left his own mental barriers and shields rather weak. Right now, the weakness of his shields allowed him to inadvertently sense the emotions emanating in the suddenly-stifling and confined room and these emotions were hammering away at his last vestiges of emotional self preservation. The cool and stoic exterior he always wore in public was starting to crack.

His already pale face suddenly paled even further and the contents of his stomach threatened to vacate rather violently. A thousand little hammers chose that moment to pound on his skull and his mouth opened in a silent cry of pain.

He looked up at the professor and silently apologized for his necessary departure.

Once he thought he had her acknowledgement, he collected his things as quietly as he could and slipped out the room as silently as possible.

Once out the room, he allowed himself to gasp at the pain.

The potion... the medication...

He needed to calm down and take his medication as fast as possible and not necessarily in that order.

With long-legged strides, he made his way to the Hallway...

Eric raised his hand after a moment's thought. "Copernicus distributed a book he wrote entitled 'Little Commentary' to his friends. That book contained seven axioms.

1. There is no one center in the universe.
2. The Earth's center is not the center of the universe.
3. The center of the universe is the sun.
4. The distance from the Earth to the sun is imperceptible compared with the distance of the stars.
5. The rotation of the Earth accounts for the apparent daily rotation of the stars.
6. The apparent annual cycle of movements of the sun is caused by the Earth revolving around it.
7. The apparent retrogade motion of the planets is caused by the motion of the Earth from which one observes."

He exhaled loudly before grinning. "It's pretty much what Nadia said."

Serena raised her hand.

Nicolaus Copernicus is the Latin version of his name which he chose to take later in his life. His original name was Mikolaj Kopernik or Nicolaus Koppernigk. Nicolaus was one of four children, two sons and two daughters, of whom Nicolaus Copernicus was the youngest.

When war broke out between Poland and the Teutonic Knights towards the end of 1519 Copernicus lived in Frauenburg. Copenicus participated in peace talks in Braunsberg as one of a two man delegation representing the Bishop of Ermland. The peace talks failed and the war continued. Even though Frauenburg came under siege, Copernicus continued to make his scientific observations. About 1520, Copernicus moved back to Allenstein Castle and had to organise its defense against attacking forces. The castle resisted the attack and by 1521 an uneasy peace had returned. As a reward for his defense of Allenstein, he was appointed Commissar of Ermland and given the task of rebuilding the district after the war.

kasnadra looked at lee as he walks out
"where are you going" she wispered

Serena raised her hand

Galileo Galilei

Born: 15 Feb 1564 in Pisa (now in Italy)
Died: 8 Jan 1642 in Arcetri (near Florence) (now in Italy)

Francis nodded. "Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa on Feb 15 in 1564 and died on Jan 8 in 1642 in Arcetri. His achievements include improving the telescope and supporting Coppernicus effectively."

Mercurio raised his hand and said something that was almost completely tranlated by a house-elf by his side. "He was a Tuscan psylosopher and astronomer. He was born in Pisa, February 15, 1564 – and died at Arcetri, January 8, 1642. Lived in Padua most his life though."

Evy silently agreed with her fellow classmates.

"I also know that he used to drop lead, wood, and paper balls from the top of the Pisa tower, and that it's that way that he discovered that all of these balls, whatever their weight was, had the same movement. Also, even though he was an admirer of Copernic's work, he taught his students that the Earth was the center of the solarsystem because he didn't want to attract attention to himself I guess. Concerning astronomy, Galilei was the one to discover Jupiter's satellites and he also made the remark that the moon wasn't a perfect sphere."

Evy didn't know if she had to continue speaking, but she really wanted to gain points for Hufflepuffs since they had lost so many in Divination.

"He also observed that the diameter of Venus could vary, and that way he emmited the hypothesis that Venus moved around the Sun. Galilei published an essay concerning the different systems of the world called: *Evy took a breathe* Dialogue où dans les rencontres de quatre journées il est disserté au sujet des deux principaux systèmes du monde, le ptoléméen et le copernicien, en proposant sans aucune détermination les raisons philosophiques et naturelles tant en faveur de l’une que de l’autre des parties. That could win an award for the longest title ever written, and even though it would be a pleasure for me to translate it to you, I guess it would just annoy you more than anything, right? But if you insist..."

Evy chuckled.

"Dialogue où dans les rencontres de quatre journées il est disserté au sujet des deux principaux systèmes du monde, le ptoléméen et le copernicien, en proposant sans aucune détermination les raisons philosophiques et naturelles tant en faveur de l’une que de l’autre des parties means something like Dialogue in which, in the meeting of four days, it is discoursed on the subject of the two principal systems of the Universe, the ptolemian and copernician, proposing without any determination the philosophical and natural reasons in the favor of both parties."

Evy smiled shyly.

Thats right! 3 points.

And a very well done to Evy, 12 points for all that!

Galileo was taught by monks at Vallombrosa and then entered the University of Pisa in 1581 to study medicine. He soon turned to philosophy and mathematics, leaving the university without a degree in 1585. For a time he tutored privately and wrote on hydrostatics and natural motions, but he did not publish. In 1589 he became professor of mathematics at Pisa, where he is reported to have shown his students the error of Aristotle’s belief that speed of fall is proportional to weight, by dropping two objects of different weight simultaneously from the Leaning Tower. His contract was not renewed in 1592, probably because he contradicted Aristotelian professors. The same year, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua, where he remained until 1610.

Little attention was paid to the Copernican, or heliocentric, system until Galileo discovered evidence to support it. Long a secret admirer of Copernicus’s work, Galileo saw his chance to test the Copernican theory of a moving Earth when the telescope was invented in the Netherlands.

He turned from speculative physics to careful measurements, discovered the law of falling bodies and of the parabolic path of projectiles, studied the motions of pendulums, and investigated mechanics and the strength of materials. He showed little interest in astronomy, although beginning in 1595 he preferred the Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun—to the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic assumption that planets circle a fixed earth. Only the Copernican model supported Galileo’s tide theory, which was based on motions of the earth. In 1609 he heard that a spyglass had been invented in Holland. In August of that year he presented a telescope, about as powerful as a modern field glass, to the doge of Venice. Its value for naval and maritime operations resulted in the doubling of his salary and his assurance of lifelong tenure as a professor.

So now with his telescope he turned it skyward, and discovered the phases of Venus, indicating that this planet revolves around the Sun; he also discovered four moons revolving around Jupiter, as well as the rings of Saturn. Convinced that some bodies, at least, do not circle Earth, he began to speak and write in favor of the Copernican system. His attempts to publicize the Copernican system caused him to be tried by the ecclesiastical authorities. Although he was forced to repudiate his beliefs and writings, the powerful theory could not be suppressed.

He discovered mountains and craters on the moon. He also saw that the Milky Way was composed of stars, and he discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter. He published these findings in March 1610 in The Starry Messenger (trans. 1880).

So as you can see, Galileo was basically forced to deny his findings. Opinions at the time were very much against the copernican theory, although he had found so much evidence to support it.

Does anyone know why his findings were so disputed? It has something to do with Aristotle...

(ow, Gero, two seconds too late =P)

*raise hand* "The work of Galileo is considered to be a significant break from that of Aristotle and the curch which used Aristotlelian beliefs as main base of knowledge. Galileo proved lost of Aristotelian theories wrong in lots of things. For example, he was a follower of Copernicus' theory that the Sun was the centre of the galaxy and we, the earth, round it up and not the other way round. This theory is called heliocentrism. Since Galileo defied Aristotle's thinking he was therefore defing the curch (even though he was a catholic). In addition, his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church is taken as a major early example of the conflict of religion and freedom of thought, particularly with science, in Western society.

Anyway, to name a few things Galileo preved Aristotle wrong and which caused his impopularity with society and the curch: One of the most famous stories about Galileo is that he dropped balls of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their velocity of descent was independent of their mass (excluding the limited effect of air resistance). This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight. He also concluded that objects retain their velocity unless a force -- often friction -- acts upon them, refuting the accepted Aristotelian hypothesis that objects "naturally" slow down and stop unless a force acts upon them.

"There was the smaller contradictions. Like, when refering to technology as distinct from pure physics, which is not the same distinction as made by Aristotle, who would have considered all Galileo's physics as techne or useful knowledge, as opposed to episteme, or philosophical investigation into the causes of things. Also, Galileo Galilei was the first to report lunar mountains and craters, whose existence he deduced from the patterns of light and shadow on the Moon's surface. He even estimated the mountains' heights from these observations. This led him to the conclusion that the Moon was "rough and uneven, and just like the surface of the Earth itself", and not a perfect sphere as Aristotle had claimed.

"Going back to the heliocentrism theory, the one that caused the most troubles: on January 7, 1610 Galileo discovered Jupiter's four largest satellites (moons): Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The demonstration that a planet had smaller planets orbiting it was problematic for the orderly, comprehensive picture of the geocentric model of the universe, in which everything circled around the Earth. Besides, Galileo noted that Venus exhibited a full set of phases like the Moon. Because the apparent brightness of Venus is nearly constant, Galileo reasoned that Venus could not be circling the Earth at a constant distance."

Nadia sighed.

"Within other instereting facts, Galieo is reputed to have invented the telescope, but that's quite inacurate; he took the idea from other people and put it under his name to sell it and afford his investigations. He did improve the telescope though, making it smaller and easier to carry plus was the first one to use to to watch the sky - before, I think, it was used on boats to gaze to find the shores, if I'm not much mistaken.

She smiled shippishly. "That's pretty much it. The fact that the church used Aristotlelian books as source of knowledge - something they did a lot at that time, quoting eldery wise man -, made that the new ideas looked against the church when in fact that was not it. The helicentrism theory was the one who suffered the most. We must remember that at that time it was believed that the centre of the universe should be the earth because then it would be proving that God is always watching us. Galileo was asked to take back what he said, and he did to avoid being hanged... and it is said that his last words, when about to die, were "and yet it moves"."

Mithos raised his hand "It was because of his disagreement with Aristotle."

Francis raised her hand. "More importantly, is the relationship between Aristotle and the church, and then Galileo and the church. Galileo contribute to a rejection of blind allegiance to an authoritative leader, such as the church and Aristotle, in matters of the separation of science and religion/philosophy"

Serena raised her hand.

Aristotle believed that the laws governing the motion of the heavens were a different set of laws than those that governed motion on the earth. Galileo's concept of inertia was quite contrary to Aristotle's ideas of motion: in Galileo's dynamics the arrow (with very small frictional forces) continued to fly through the air because of the law of inertia, while a block of wood on a table stopped sliding once the applied force was removed because of frictional forces that Aristotle analyzed incorrectly.

Also, Galileo's extensive telescopic observations of the heavens made it more and more plausible that they were not made from a perfect, unchanging substance. In particular, Galileo's observational confirmation of the Copernican hypothesis suggested that the Earth was just another planet, so maybe it was made from the same material as the other planets.

Galileo laid the groundwork to overthrow the physics of Aristotle, in addition to his astronomy. It fell to Isaac Newton to bring these threads together and to demonstrate that the laws that governed the heavens were the same laws that governed motion on the surface of the Earth.

Tycho Brahe

Born: 14 Dec 1546 in Knudstrup, Denmark
Died: 24 Oct 1601 in Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic)

Francis smiled and raised her hand, "Tycho Brahe, most commonly known as Tycho, was born on Dec 14th in 1546 in Knudstrup, Denmark. He died on Oct 24th in 1601 in Prague, Bohemia -- which is now known as the Czech Republic. He was a Danish noble man, who was known in the areas of astronomy and alchemy. Also, his most famous assistant was Keppler"

Serena added more about him.

Tycho Brahe's contributions to astronomy were enormous. He not only designed and built instruments, he also calibrated them and checked their accuracy periodically. He thus revolutionized astronomical instrumentation. He also changed observational practice profoundly. Earlier astronomers had been content to observe the positions of planets and the Moon at certain important points of their orbits, Tycho and his cast of assistants observed these bodies throughout their orbits. This resulted in a number of orbital anomalies never before noticed and were made explicitly by Tycho. Without these complete series of observations of unprecedented accuracy, Kepler could not have discovered that planets move in elliptical orbits. Tycho was also the first astronomer to make corrections for atmospheric refraction. In general, whereas previous astronomers made observations accurate to perhaps 15 arc minutes, those of Tycho were accurate to perhaps 2 arc minutes, and it has been shown that his best observations were accurate to about half an arc minute.
Tycho's observations of the new star of 1572 and comet of 1577, and his publications on these phenomena, were instrumental in establishing the fact that these bodies were above the Moon and that therefore the heavens were not immutable as Aristotle had argued and philosophers still believed. The heavens were changeable and therefore the Aristotelian division between the heavenly and earthly regions came under attack, like with Galileo's 'Dialogue', and was eventually dropped. Further, if comets were in the heavens, they moved through the heavens. Up to now it had been believed that planets were carried on material spheres (spherical shells) that fit tightly around each other. Tycho's observations showed that this arrangement was impossible because comets moved through these spheres. Celestial spheres faded out of existence between 1575 and 1625.

"Thanks, professor."

Evy smiled.

"In the book I searched it, it said that Tycho Brahe was born in Skane, Denmark, now Skane, Sweden, in 1546. Is it a different name for Knudstrup? And he died in Prague, Bohemia, in 1601 as the others said."

"A funny fact (well, not really funny lol) is that he lost part of his nose during a duel with another student while he went to University. He created the finest observatory of that time in Hven, and that's where he made most of his researches. Here are some of his work that were published only after his death: On the New and Never Previously Seen Star, Concerning the New Phenomena in the Ethereal World, Instruments for the Restored Astronomy, and Introductory Exercises Toward a Restored Astronomy. He was a reknown scientist at that time. Tycho and his assistant, Johanne Kepler (who was a man by the way) calculated the planetary orbits and their tables were much more accurate then any previous tables. He is known for revolutionizing astronomical instrumentation."

"However, Tycho was not a follower of Copernicus, because he thought that the Earth was the center of the Universe but he used some of his theories and some theories of Aristotle to imagine a new system: the moon and sun revolve around the Earth, but the other planets revolve around the sun."

Francis raised her hand. "Kepler was born on December 27, 1571 at the Imperial Free City of Weil der Stadt (now part of the Stuttgart Region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 30 km west of Stuttgart's city center). He was introduced to astronomy/astrology at an early age, and developed a love for that discipline that would span his entire life. At age six, he observed the Comet of 1577. In December 1599, Tycho Brahe wrote to Kepler, inviting Kepler to assist him at Benatek outside Prague. After Tycho's death, Kepler was appointed Imperial Mathematician (from November 1601 to 1630) to the Habsburg Emperors. In October 1604, Kepler observed the supernova which was subsequently named Kepler's Star. In January 1612 the Emperor died, and Kepler took the post of provincial mathematician in Linz. On March 8, 1618 Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion: distance cubed over time squared. He initially rejected this idea, but later confirmed it on May 15 of the same year. On November 15, 1630 Kepler died of a fever in Regensburg."

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, at the Imperial Free City of Weil der Stadt (now part of the Stuttgart Region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 30 km west of Stuttgart's city center). His grandfather had been Lord Mayor of that town, but by the time Johannes was born, the Kepler family fortunes were in decline. His father earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and abandoned the family when Johannes was 17. His mother, an inn-keeper's daughter, had a reputation for involvement in witchcraft. Born prematurely, Johannes is said to have been a weak and sickly child, but despite his ill health, he was precociously brilliant.
Though he excelled in his schooling, Kepler was frequently bullied, and was plagued by a belief that he was physically repulsive, thoroughly unlikable and, compared to the other pupils, an outsider. This ostracizing probably led him to turn to the world of ideas, as well as an abiding religious conviction, for solace. He died November 15, 1630. He was a German astronomer, mathematician and astrologer.

Anelreas decided to take out a few more scrolls of parchment. She would be taking quite a lot of notes.

Mithos raised his hand "Kepler was born on December 27, 1571"

ooc: do we need to raise our hand before answering a question? 'cause some people don't do it...

Mithos raised his hand "Newton's first major public scientific achievement was the invention, design and construction of a reflecting telescope. He ground the mirror, built the tube, and even made his own tools for the job. This was a real advance in telescope technology, and ensured his election to membership in the Royal Society. The mirror gave a sharper image than was possible with a large lens because a lens focusses different colors at slightly different distances, an effect called chromatic aberration. This problem is minimized nowadays by using compound lenses, two lenses of different kinds of glass stuck together, that err in opposite directions, and thus tend to cancel each other's shortcomings, but mirrors are still used in large telescopes."

Francis said, "Sir Isaac Newton was born on 25 December 1642 and died 20 March 1727 if you use the Julian calendar, which was used during his lifetime. If you use the gregorian calendar he was born on 4 January 1643 and died on 31 March 1727. Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and alchemist. However, he was never interested in physics or math, he actually did the work in order to make a living! He actually invented Calculus one day after being stucked on his dorm room when he was 24 yrs old. He had been quarantined on campus all summer."

Mithos looked at Francis and wished he could high five her!

"Sir Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham, Licolnshire, England. He's said to be the greatest scientific genius of all time. He attended Trinity College [Cambridge] in June 1661.

For the next couple of years, the time being around the plague, Newton laid the foundation for elementary differential and integral Calculus, something we all come in counter with some point in our life.

Newton is mainly known for establishing the three laws of gravitations and the laws of motion. With them, he could explain a wide range of hitherto disparate phenomena such as the eccentric orbits of comets, the causes of the tides, and their major variations, the precession of the Earth's axis, and the perturbation of the motion of the Moon by the gravity of the sun.

Newton passed away in London on March 31, 1727." Anelreas spoke, broadly.

Hayley copied down the in depth notes of the astronomers mentioned. She raised her hand, a little late but added, "Umm... just a odd fact, Tycho Brahe died when his bladder exploded while having dinner with the King of England." She smiled at her comment, and looked back down at her parchment.

Mu copied down her notes and sighed.

ooc: I know so much about him!! My brother's a math genius, having studied all about the greats like Newton, but I'm more into their biographies. You wouldn't believe some of things I'm studied about Isaac, like the fact that he kept 'a book of sins' which contained a confession of his thoughts of burning down his mother's house with his mother inside. Isaac held extreme resentment towards his mother because of her abandoning him as a child in order to marry an old man who did not want the three-year-old boy. The older Newton was quite misanthropic and rebellious in school. PM me if you'd like to know more about him.
Carl Friedrich Gauss is another man who devoted much of his time to the study of the stars.

Natalya raised her hand and took a deep breath. "In October 1667, after his return to Cambridge--the university had been closed because of an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665--he began devote more of his time to optics, a subject which he developed an interest for years earlier when he conducted his first observations of the study, which included grotesque experiments such as pushing the edge of a bodkin {stick} up under his eye and then recording the effect it made; incrediablly, it caused no permanent harm to his vision. Another amazing rather than gruesome project was his constuction of a huge prism over one of the windows at the university.
"But back to subject, his interest in optics gave Astronomy a marvelous design: a reflecting telescope, or a telescope that uses mirrors instead of lenses. Mirrors reflect all colors of light by the same amount. Although a Scottish mathematician, James Gregory, had proposed a design for a reflecting telescope in 1663, Newton had been the first to build one."

(ooc: lol, we had the first tense of our answers the same! :lol: )

"On his life we have that Newton began his schooling in the village schools and later was sent to Grantham Grammar School where he became the top boy in the school. At Grantham he lodged with the local apothecary and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Miss Storey, before he went off to Cambridge University at the age of 19. But Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storey married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded 'sweethearts' and never married. Newton was educated at Grantham Grammar School. In 1661 he joined Trinity College, Cambridge, where his uncle William Ayscough had studied. At that time the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665 he discovered the binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had collected his degree in 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next two years Newton worked at home on calculus, optics and gravitation.

Newton was also a member of Parliament from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed. Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Newton became master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699.
In 1701 Newton anonymously published a law of thermodynamics now known as "Newton's law of cooling" in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1703 Newton became President of the Royal Society and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by attempting to steal his catalogue of observations. Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. Newton never married, nor had any recorded children. He died in London and was buried in Westminster Abbey. It is believed Newton never had a romantic relationship, he is said to have died a virgin.

"Tradition has it that Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head, and this made him understand that earthly and celestial gravitation are the same. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre. This is an exaggeration of Newton's own tale about sitting by the window of his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree. However it is now generally considered that this story was invented by him in his later life, to try to show how clever he was at drawing inspiration from everyday events. He is maybe the most known for this tale.

"He is also notable for his arguments that light was composed of particles(wave-particle duality). He was the first to realise that the spectrum of colours observed when white light was passed through a prism was inherent in the white light, and not added by the prism as Roger Bacon had claimed in the 13th century. Newton also developed Newton's law of cooling, describing the rate of cooling of objects when exposed to air; the binomial theorem in its entirety; and the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. Finally, he studied the speed of sound in air, and voiced a theory of the origin of stars.

"The rest," Nadia said now finished, "is as told by my mates."

Evy sighed and quickly took notes as the others spoke. She clearly wasn't in a mood for answering questions.

Anelreas' jaw almost dropped at all of the information Nadia spoke of about Sir Isaac. The girl never ceased to amaze her with her knowledge.

Selena raises hand

"He was born 20 Nov 1889 in Marshfield, Missouri

*Julia copies some things down. She looks at Selena and nods slightly. She looks up at the Professor.*

Francis raised her hand, "Edwin Powell Hubble was born on November 20, 1889 and died on September 28, 1953. He was a noted American astronomer, generally credited for discovering the redshift of galaxies and that fact that the universe is expanding. Nevetheless, this redshift discovery was actually been observed by Vesto Slipher in the 1910s, but the world was largely unaware of Vesto Slipher's work."

Francis continued, "An interesting fact about his youth is that in his younger days, he was noted more for his athletic abilities rather than his intellectual genius: he won seven first places and a third placing in a single high school meet in 1906. That year he also set a state record for high jump in Illinois."


Francis continued, "Regarding his studies, at the University of Chicago he concentrated on mathematics and astronomy which led to a B.S. degree in 1910. He spent the next three years as one of Oxford's first Rhodes Scholars, where he studied in the field of law and received the M.A. degree, after which he returned to the United States as a high school teacher and a basketball coach in New Albany, Indiana!"

Francis smiled, "After he earned his PhD the University of Chicago in 1917, in 1919 Hubble was offered a staff position by George Ellery Hale, the founder and director of Carnegie Institution's Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena, California, where he remained until his death. Shortly before his death, Palomar's 200-inch Hale Telescope was completed, and Hubble was the first to use it.


After his arrival at Mount Wilson and using the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, then the world's most powerful telescope, Hubble's established that the fuzzy "nebulae" seen earlier with less powerful telescopes were not part of our galaxy, and were galaxies themselves, which he announced on December 30, 1924.

Subsequently, Hubble discovered the velocity-distance relation, now know as the Hubble's law, which led to the concept of the expanding universe. He also discovered the asteroid 1373 Cincinnati on August 30, 1935, and the asteroid 2069 Hubble is named for him."

*Julia looks at the Professor. Julia looks around the classroom. She shrugs and shakes her head slightly. She looks back up at the professor wondering what is next.*

Nadia took some notes, not remember much about Hubble that minute. Maybe it was the overload of information or the tiredness since it was late at night, but as interesting as it was, Nadia didn't try answering just now. She rubbed a spot at her temples trying to awake herself.

Serena raised her hand.

Another interesting thing the Hubble has contributed, by gazing across space and time, the satellite identified the farthest stellar explosion to date. It was a supernova that erupted 10 billion years ago. In 2001 astronomers collected the first observational evidence that gravity began slowing down the universe's expansion after the Big Bang by examining the glow from the dying star or supernova that is called 1997ff. This finding reinforces the idea that the universe only recently began to speed up. This discovery was made in 1998 when the unusually dim light of several distant supernovas suggested that the universe is expanding more quickly than it has in the past. Many Muggle Scientists believe that a mysterious, repulsive force is at work in the cosmos, making galaxies rush ever faster away from each other, thus, causing the universe's expansion to accelerate

Homework
 

Well done, another 5 points for Serena!

If anyone has further questions please ask them, otherwise, her's the homework for the lesson.

1. When are where was Copernicus born, and when was his death. (2)
2. What was Copernicus’ best known theory called? (3)
3. When and where was Galileo born, and when was his death? (2)
4. True or false, one of Galileo’s main contributions to Astronomy was the use of the telescope in observation and discovery. (2)
5. When are where was Brahe born, and when was his death. (2)
6. True or false, although Brahe saw merit in the Copernican theory, he still believed that the planets circled the earth. (3)
7. Kepler is most noted for discovering what laws of the planets? (3)
8. What branch of Mathematics did Sir Isaac Newton create? (1)
9. True or false, Hubble said that the universe was not expanding. (1)
10. What percentage of the galaxies that Hubble observed where regular? (1)

You have 4 days to hand it in. It is worth a total of 20 points. PM it to me with your name, house and member number. Good luck!

Evy quickly packed her things and darted towards the exit, nodding at the teacher as she passed by.

Amy packed her things, her notes, and a lolly. She smiled.
"Great lesson Professor!" She commented, smiling and exiting for her next class.