After an unfortunate experience at the University of Pisa, Galileo became at the age of 28 a professor in Padua, where he spent 18 years that he would later describe as the best years of his life. During this period, he benefited from the scientific freedom and international connections of the Republic of Venice, revolutionizing mechanics and astronomy. According to Einstein, Galileo essentially invented the scientific method. These were also years of competition and cooperation among European scientists, particularly Germans, French, English, and Dutch, marked by debates on the methodology and by the preparation of future topics of discussion. Particularly significant was Galileo’s interaction with the other great astronomer of his time, Johannes Kepler, regarding the supernova explosion of 1604, visible to the naked eye.
Friday February 7th, 2025 at 2:00 pm.
Osler Library of the History of Medicine, third floor, 3655 promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal
Free Admission RSVP
Conference held in English
Alessandro De Angelis is a high-energy physicist and astrophysicist. A professor at the Universities of Padua and Lisbon, he serves as the scientific counselor for the Italian Delegation to International Organizations in Paris. His main research interests lie in fundamental physics, particularly astrophysics and elementary particle physics at accelerators. A graduate of the University of Padua and a CERN staff member in the 1990s, he later was one of the founding members of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Telescope, the MAGIC telescopes at La Palma, and the SWGO observatory in Chile. He is the author of numerous scientific publications in journals such as Science and Nature, as well as general interest articles and essays on the history and philosophy of science, and of several books. In particular he authored four books on Galileo: Galileo and satellite navigation (Springer and Castelvecchi), Galileo and the 1604 supernova (Springer and Castelvecchi), The best eighteen years of my life (Castelvecchi and Gradiva), Two new sciences for modern readers (Codice, Springer, and EDP).