2010-09-08T14:24:10+01:00 http://forum.jodcast.net/ Lussumo Vanilla & Feed Publisher http://forum.jodcast.net/comments.php?DiscussionID=22&Focus=83#Comment_83 2009-01-27T13:41:48+00:00 2010-09-08T14:24:10+01:00 Megan Argo http://forum.jodcast.net/account.php?u=28

What they think is that some of the effects he saw were due to an eye defect that could have been genetic, possibly unilateral myopia (which might, incidentally, have caused his eventual blindness). ...

http://forum.jodcast.net/comments.php?DiscussionID=22&Focus=81#Comment_81 2009-01-24T15:03:34+00:00 2010-09-08T14:24:10+01:00 Stuart Lowe http://forum.jodcast.net/account.php?u=1

@yodatheoak I agree that this is a little extreme just to make a film. Will a post-mortem actually be able to tell us what his eyes were like years before he died? Good point about him making his own ...

http://forum.jodcast.net/comments.php?DiscussionID=22&Focus=80#Comment_80 2009-01-23T22:34:19+00:00 2010-09-08T14:24:10+01:00 Jodatheoak http://forum.jodcast.net/account.php?u=31

I was listening to BBC radio 4 news and they had a guy talking about why they wanted to exhume...they don't have all the money to do it. One of the reasons was because a film was being made and they ...

One of the reasons was because a film was being made and they wanted to show what Galileo could see...seems lame to me - I think some mysteries should be kept mysteries.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/23/galileo-dna-test
I did read that his telescope was quite powerful...didn't he make his own lenses and if he did wouldn't he produce them to correct some defects of his eyes?]]> http://forum.jodcast.net/comments.php?DiscussionID=22&Focus=78#Comment_78 2009-01-23T08:53:09+00:00 2010-09-08T14:24:10+01:00 Stuart Lowe http://forum.jodcast.net/account.php?u=1

yodatheoak, I've heard that Galileo went blind later in life (in his 70s I think) but I've never heard a claim that this happened earlier. It would be very strange that none of his patrons, ...

The implication of the claim seems to be that Galileo faked his observations. If he had (which seems very unlikely) this wouldn't affect our understanding of the universe because we don't rely on his word alone. Many other people around the time (and even just before e.g. Thomas Harriot) observed the same things that Galileo noted. These were independent observations that confirmed his findings. In fact, hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of people have looked through telescopes since and confirmed things such as craters on the Moon, Jupiter's moons, the phases of Venus etc.

The only thing such a finding would really change would be our understanding of Galileo himself.]]> http://forum.jodcast.net/comments.php?DiscussionID=22&Focus=77#Comment_77 2009-01-23T00:44:28+00:00 2010-09-08T14:24:10+01:00 Jodatheoak http://forum.jodcast.net/account.php?u=31

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask but...would it make any differnce to the astronomy world If Galileo couldn't see and some of the theories and observations didn't add up?