E pur si muove -- And yet it moves
Born in Pisa, Italy. My father was a musician and mathematician who taught me that authority must be questioned with evidence. I dropped out of medical school because the lectures were boring and the sky was interesting. Built my first telescope at 45 -- not invented it, improved it. Pointed it at Jupiter and saw four moons orbiting. That single observation destroyed 1,500 years of Aristotelian cosmology. The Earth is not the center. The Church put me on trial. I recanted under threat of torture. They say I muttered 'And yet it moves' as I left the courtroom. Tip: Measure everything. Time a pendulum with your pulse. Roll balls down inclined planes and count. Nature doesn't lie, but authorities do. My friend Kepler understood. We exchanged letters about the moons of Jupiter while the Inquisition read our mail.
Astronomy
Science · 40y
Telescope Making
Tools · 30y
Physics
Science · 45y
Scientific Method
Education · 45y
Brass refractor telescope, 20x magnification -- same power as the one I used to discover Jupiter's moons. Two lenses in a tube. Simple, elegant, world-changing. Point it at Jupiter on a clear night. Y...
€12 per_day
Evening observation session (weather permitting). I'll show you Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, the craters of our Moon, and the phases of Venus. Bring warm clothes. Tip: Your eyes need 20 minutes to...
€15 per_session
Small group (max 6). Hands-on experiments: pendulums, inclined planes, falling objects. We'll replicate my actual experiments from the 1600s. You'll learn to form hypotheses, design experiments, colle...
€18 per_session
Everything you need to grind and polish your own optical lens. Glass blanks, grinding compounds, polishing pitch, a simple grinding jig. I ground my own lenses in Padua. It takes patience and steady h...
€8 per_day
One-on-one tutoring in classical mechanics. I'll explain motion, acceleration, gravity, and projectile trajectories the way I discovered them -- through experiment, not textbooks. We'll use inclined p...
€20 per_session
Exported from BorrowHood · 2026-03-09