Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.17234/RadoviZHP.56.24
Marko Antun de Dominis vs. Galileo Galilei: From Construction to Theory of Binoculars
Marijana Borić
orcid.org/0000-0002-0044-0888
Abstract
Marko Antun de Dominis (Rab, 1560 – Rome, 8 September 1624), worked at the transition of the 16th to the 17th century, at a time when epochal changes were taking place in science and the philosophy of science, and in contrast to the traditional Aristotelian approach to the study of nature a new approach is introduced with the application of mathematical methods, of axiomatic deductive system, experiments and observations. Although de Dominis was educated in the Aristotelian tradition, from which he does not deviate completely, he used a new approach in natural sciences research. This is evidenced by his optical work De radiis visus et lucis in vitris perspectivis et iride (Discourse on the Rays of Sight and Light in Lenses and the Rainbow), completed at the end of 1609 and published in Venice in 1611. He wrote the work for the most part twenty years before the first public demonstration of binoculars in 1609, and completed it independently of Galileo’s work and before the publication of Kepler’s works in which the theory of lenses and binoculars is exactly explained. Therefore, this work by de Dominis is not only a valuable original contribution to optics, but also the first work in history that fully interprets the theory of binoculars, an instrument that begins a new era of astronomical and optical research.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
330301
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2024.
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