Publications or other major efforts in my field of Physics and Astronomy/Astrophysics (last updated December 13, 2021):

 

*      Optical Coronal Emission Lines from Equilibrium and Cooling Plasmas
The Astrophysical Journal (December 1, 1990)
SAO/NASA ADS link

*      Optical Coronal Emission Lines from Cooling Flows in Elliptical Galaxies and Galaxy Clusters
The Astrophysical Journal (July 10, 1991)
SAO/NASA ADS link

*      Taking a Swat at Physics With a Ping-Pong Paddle
The Physics Teacher (February 1994)
SAO/NASA ADS link

*      Digitized Video Images as a Tool in the Physics Laboratory
The Physics Teacher (October 1995)
SAO/NASA ADS link

*      Classroom Image Processing
Sky & Telescope (August 2000)

Click here for the support web page that accompanied this piece.  You can still download the software.

Sky & Telescope edited what I submitted to them so much that the piece published there was essentially an abstract of my original article, “An Image Processor for Students and Other Novices”.

 

 

*      The Physics of Speed and the Marketing of Horsepower
Jefferson Community College Southwest Speaker Series Public Lecture (December 13, 2003)

Click here for PowerPoint presentation.  Best viewed with Internet Explorer or PowerPoint.

 

 

*      Aristotle Was Right – Galileo Was Wrong (PowerPoint presentation.  Best viewed with Internet Explorer or PowerPoint.)
Workshops at Jefferson Community College (March & April 2005).

*      An Alternative Approach to 'Measuring Horsepower and Torque Curves of a Car'
The Physics Teacher (September 2005).
SAO/NASA ADS link 

*      A Treasure Trove of Physics from a Common Source -- Automobile Acceleration Data
The Physics Teacher (November 2005).
SAO/NASA ADS link

*      Letter to the Editor of Sky and Telescope Concerning Galileo's Observations of Mizar
Sky & Telescope (May 2006, July 2007)
arxiv.org link

*      The Accuracy of Galileo’s Observations and the Early Search for Stellar Parallax
Unpublished (2006)

 

*      On the Accuracy of Galileo’s Observations
Baltic Astronomy Volume 16, Number 3 (2007); click here for author’s version with larger figures, click here for published version.

*      About Daylight
Kentucky Association for Environmental Education Newsletter (Spring 2008); click here for KAEE web site).

 

*      But Still, It Moves: Tides, Stellar Parallax, and Galileo’s Commitment to the Copernican Theory
Physics in Perspective Volume 10, Number 3 (September, 2008); click here for link to Birkhäuser Basel:  Springer.
SAO/NASA ADS link

*      Visible Stars as Apparent Observational Evidence in Favor of the Copernican Principle in the Early 17th Century
Baltic Astronomy Volume 17, Number 3 (2008).
arxiv.org link

*      Regarding the Potential Impact of Double Star Observations on Conceptions of the Universe of Stars in the Early 17th Century (with Henry Sipes)
Baltic Astronomy Volume 18, Number 1 (2009).
arxiv.org link

*      The Universe of Stars as Revealed to Galileo by Sensory Experience with the Telescope
(presented July 11 2009 at ND IX, Ninth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop, Notre Dame, Indiana)
This general contents of this talk, absent illustrations, are available on arxiv.org.

*      OBJECTS IN TELESCOPE ARE FARTHER THAN THEY APPEAR:  How diffraction tricked Galileo into mismeasuring the distances to the stars
The Physics Teacher (September 2009)
arxiv.org link

This paper was picked up by science news media after being posted on ArXiv in August, 2008.

Galileo Duped by Diffraction -- news article by K. Sanderson
Nature.com, 2 September 2008 (click here for Nature link)

Verzeihlicher Fehler (Pardonable Error) -- article by Sandra Czaja
www.wissenschaft-online.de, 6 September 2008 (click here for wissenschaft-online link).

 

Galileo's Stars: Distance and Diffraction -- article by Chris Larson
Facts on File:  Today’s Science, September 2008 (click here for FOF link)

 

 

*      Four centuries later, story of Galileo is still unfolding, The Record (October 15, 2009).
Record online version

*      17th Century Photometric Data in the Form of Johannes Hevelius's Telescopic Measurements of the Apparent Diameters of Stars
Baltic Astronomy Volume 18, Number 3 (2009)
arxiv.org link

 

*      Seeds of a Tychonic Revolution:  Telescopic Observations of the Stars by Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius
Physics in Perspective Volume 12, Number 1 (March 2010) (click here for link to Birkhäuser Basel:  Springer).

This paper was picked up by science news media in March, 2010:

Galileo backed Copernicus despite data -- news article by K. Sanderson
Nature.com, 5 March 2010 (click here for Nature link)

 

Galileo in a spin -- Guardian.co.uk, March 7, 2010

 

Galileis geheime Daten -- NZZ Online (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), March 17, 2010

 

Myth, heaven, and Galileo -- Guardian.co.uk, May 1, 2010

 

 

*      Eavesdropping on Apollo 11, ARRL News & Features (July 16, 2010)
ARRL Link

*      Is Magnification Consistent? Why people from amateur astronomers to science's worst enemy have some basic physics wrong.
The Physics Teacher (October 2010)
arxiv.org link

*      The Making of the Fathers of Astronomy Exhibit CAP Journal (October 2010)

*      The Telescope Against Copernicus:  Star observations by Riccioli supporting a geocentric universe Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 41, Number 4 (2010)

*      On the telescopic disks of stars – a review and analysis of stellar observations from the early 17th through the middle 19th centuries (with T. P. Grayson) Annals of Science, iFirst 27 October 2010, DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2010.507472, Print Volume 68, Issue 3 (2011)
arxiv.org link

*      Changes in the Cloud Belts of Jupiter, 1630-1664, as reported in the 1665 Astronomia Reformata of Giovanni Battista Riccioli Baltic Astronomy Volume 19 (2010)
arxiv.org link

*      A True Demonstration:  Bellarmine and the stars as evidence against Earth’s motion in the early 17th century Logos Volume 14, Number 3 (2011)

*      Giovanni Battista Riccioli’s Review of the Case for and Against the Copernican Hypothesis
(presented July 9 2011 at ND X, Tenth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop, Notre Dame, Indiana)

*      Coriolis Effect — two centuries before Coriolis Physics Today (August 2011).
PDF link

This work was picked up by science news media in early 2011 after I posted some preliminary material on Arxiv:

Did Riccioli 'Discover' the Coriolis Effect? Analysis by Jennifer Ouellette, Discovery Channel News (news.discovery.com), 27 January 2011

 

Coriolis-like effect found 184 years before Coriolis, MacGregor Campbell, New Scientist, 14 January 2011

 

 

*      Varied and Inhospitable American Scientist Volume 99, Number 5, (September-October 2011)

*      Contra Galileo: Riccioli’s “Coriolis-Force” Argument on the Earth’s Diurnal Rotation
Physics in Perspective Volume 13, Number 4 (December 2011), DOI: 10.1007/s00016-011-0058-5 (click here for link to Birkhäuser Basel:  Springer)

*      Teaching Galileo? Get to know Riccioli! -- What a forgotten Italian astronomer can teach students about how science works The Physics Teacher Volume 50 (January 2012)
arxiv.org link

*      Tycho was a Scientist… — guest blog on “The Renaissance Mathematicus” (March 6, 2012)

*      Science rather than God:  Giovanni Battista Riccioli’s review of the case for and against the Copernican Hypothesis Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 43, Number 2 (May 2012)

*      Anatomy of a fall: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the story of g, Physics Today (September 2012)
PDF link

 

*      The Work of the Best and Greatest Artist: A Forgotten Story of Religion, Science, and Stars in the Copernican Revolution Logos Volume 15, Number 4 (Fall 2012)

 

*      Life as We Know It (with M. J. Crowe), Notre Dame Magazine (Autumn 2012)

*      Horrocks on the Transit of Venus (book review of Venus Seen on the Sun: The First Observation of a Transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks, translated by Wilbur Applebaum) Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 44, Number 1 (February 2013)

*      Stars as the Armies of God: Lansbergen's Incorporation of Tycho Brahe's Star-Size Argument into the Copernican Theory Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 44, Number 2 (May 2013)

*      Mass, Speed, Direction: John Buridan's 14th-Century Concept of Momentum The Physics Teacher Volume 51 (October 2013)
arxiv.org link

*      The Case Against Copernicus Scientific American Volume 310, Number 1 (January 2014)


Translation of this paper into French:  Pourquoi ils n'ont pas cru Copernic Pour la Science (February 2014)
Translation of this paper into Arabic:  القضية المرفوعة ضد Majallat Al-Oloom (May-June 2014)
Translation of this paper into German:  Kopernikus - Revolution mit Hindernissen Spektrum der Wissenschaft (October 2014)
Translation of this paper into Spanish:  El caso contra Copérnico Investigación y Ciencia (December 2014)
Translation of this paper into Hebrew:  תיק קופרניקוס Hebrew Scientific American Israel (April-May 2014)
Translation of this paper into Italian:  Processo a Copernico Le Scienze (March 2014)
Translation of this paper into Japanese: 
地動説への反論 科学者が革新的アイデアに慎重な理由 Nikkei Science (July 2014)
Translation of this paper into Polish: Kłopot z Kopernikiem Świat Nauki (February 2014)

*      The Inquisition's Semicolon: Punctuation, Translation, and Science in the 1616 Condemnation of the Copernican System
Unpublished (2014)

This paper was picked up by science news media after being posted on ArXiv in February, 2014.

Una errata reproducida durante siglos cambia la censura de la Iglesia a Galileo -- news article by Nuño Domínguez
esmateria.com, February 28, 2014 (click here for esmateria.com link)

 

 

*      An Astronomer Too Excellent – invited lecture given September 22, 2014 in Nurnberg, Germany, as part of the Simon Marius und die Astronomie in Franken conference

*      Little Things Matter… — guest blog on “The Renaissance Mathematicus” (October 21, 2014)

*      Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo – book published by University of Notre Dame Press (April 15, 2015)
Amazon.com link 

*      The Telescope Speaks for Tycho: Simon Marius, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, and the problem of telescopic observations of stars in the early 17th century, in Astronomie in Franken: Von den Anfängen bis zur modernen Astrophysik: 125 Jahre Dr. Remeis-Sternwarte Bamberg (1889), Gudrun Wolfschmidt, editor (2015).

 

*      War Marius als Astronom zu gut? Simon Marius, das Teleskop und das Problem der Sterngrößen während der copernicanischen Revolution Acta Historica Astronomiae Volume 57 (2016).

 

*      Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious Aeon (September 21, 2016).

This article was republished as

Galileo Fought Dirty With His Fellow Scientists The Atlantic (October 17, 2016).

 

ואף על פי כן, טעה טעית אלכסון (March 28, 2017).

L'opposizione a Galileo era scientifica, non solo religiosa, The Vision (28 Settembre 2018)

مخالفت با گالیله علمی بود، نه اینکه صرفاً مذهبی باشد, Tarjomaan (چهارشنبه ۲۷ ارديبهشت ۱۳۹۶ ۱۴:۲۸)

 

 

*      Early descriptions of Coriolis effect Physics Today (July 2017).
PDF link
arxiv.org link

*      Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo – book published by University of Notre Dame Press (October 15, 2017)
Amazon.com link 

*      The Popular Creation Story of Astronomy is Wrong, Nautilus (May 17, 2018)
Click here for a PDF version

*      How to Make the Earth Orbit the Sun in 1614, Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 50, Number 1 (February 2019)
arxiv.org link

*      As Big as a Universe: Johannes Kepler on the Immensities of Stars and of Divine Power, Catholic Historical Review Volume 105, Number 1 (Winter 2019)

 

*      The Starry Universe of Johannes Kepler, Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 50, Number 2 (May 2019)
arxiv.org link

*      An Astronomer Too Excellent: Simon Marius, the Telescope, and the Problem of the Stars During the Copernican Revolution in Simon Marius and His Research, Springer (August 2019)

*      Omission and Invention: The Problematic Nature of Galileo's Proposed Proofs for Earth's Motion, Logos Volume 22, Number 4 (Fall 2019)

*      An Alternate History of Modern Science, Church Life Journal (January 14, 2020)

*      Decoding the Stars (book review) Catholic Historical Review Volume 106, Number 3 (Summer 2020)

*      The Galileo Myth, America (October 2020)

*      The cosmos of a Big God: Brahe, Kepler, Bruno and the sizes of the stars in a Copernican universe in Intersections of Religion and Astronomy (Chris Corbally, Darry Dinell, and Aaron Ricker, editors), book published by Routledge (2021).

*      Of Mites and Men (and Stars): Kepler on the Question of Star Sizes in De stella nova in Kepler’s New Star (1604): Context and Controversy (Patrick J. Boner, editor), book published by Brill (2021).

*      The Starry Universe of Jacques Cassini: Century-old Echoes of Kepler, Journal for the History of Astronomy Volume 52, Number 2 (May 2021)

*      Galileo Between Jesuits: The Fault Is in the Stars, Catholic Historical Review Volume 107, Number 2 (Spring 2021)

*      The Shogun’s Silver Telescope (book review) Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage Volume 24, Number 1 (March 2021)

*      Johannes Kepler, Giordano Bruno, and Scientific Martyrdom, Skeptic Volume 26, Number 2 (2021)

*      Galileo, a Model of Rational Thinking? (essay review), Catholic Historical Review Volume 107, Number 3 (Summer 2021)

*      The truth about Galileo and the Catholic Church, Aleteia (September 24, 2021)

*      Everything Your Friends Know About Galileo Is Wrong, National Catholic Register (September 27, 2021)

*      The Vatican Observatory has fought fire, COVID-19, and even moths to reach the stars, Aleteia (October 19, 2021)

 

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