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Christopher M. Graney

About Christopher M. Graney

Christopher M. Graney is an Adjunct Scholar at the Vatican Observatory, and Professor of physics and astronomy at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky (USA), where he helps keep the college’s observatory running. For some years now his research focus has been the history of astronomy, especially the late 16th and early 17th centuries. That research has resulted in two books: Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science Against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo (2015), and Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo (2017), both published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Graney is also editor of the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages.

The Infinite – Faith and Math (re-run)

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This post is a re-run of a post that originally ran in August, 2018. This post is part of a series of posts on Pi, infinity, and other things mathematical. Click here for the series. Why might a person see great intrinsic value in mathematical knowledge? Why might a person be a “math nerd”? Consider this lengthy quotation, from a piece written by Fr. Ron Rolheiser that was published in The Record (the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky) some time ago,* in which Fr. Rolheiser reflects upon the words of a woman who had gone through a profound spiritual experience: What she remembers most and most wants to share with others is this: “I learned that God is very close. We have no idea how close God is to us. God is closer to us than we ever imagine!” Her experience has left her forever branded with a sense of God’s warmth, love, and welcome, but what’s left … Continue reading →

Soaring in Kentucky in 2019

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There were two bald eagles soaring over the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky one Saturday this past October.  My wife and I saw them while we were taking a walk on a brisk, fall day.  They were wheeling far overhead in a perfect azure sky.  It was October 12.  The eagles were not soaring over some remote part of the Ohio River—they were on the river where it passes right between the downtowns of Louisville on one side, and Jeffersonville, Indiana on the other.  Below the eagles were bridges, boats, cars, buildings, parks, and lots of people out enjoying the day. The first time I ever saw a bald eagle in the wild was also on the Ohio River.  This was in the early 2000s, when my family was exploring a remote area west of Leavenworth, Indiana.  Then, a few years later, when my college’s observatory was located in Otter Creek Park, on the river well south-east of Louisville, everyone … Continue reading →

Blaise Pascal and his Wager

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Check out Blaise Pascal’s Wager on the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science site (click here for it). If you like math and science it is likely that you have encountered Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).  Perhaps you learned about Pascal’s Principle of hydraulics in a physical science class, or in an engineering technology class where you learned about machines that use hydraulics.  Or maybe you read about his work with measuring atmospheric pressure, and how he found that as he ascended a mountain the pressure he measured grew less and less.  You might have encountered Pascal’s Triangle in a math class. Pascal’s Wager involves matters of faith—sort of.  The Wager is an argument that it is reasonable to seek to believe in God.  “Seek”, because the Wager is directed to the person who neither believes nor is inclined to believe.  The Wager argues that a person risks little, and gains much, by choosing to seek belief in God.  It is all about … Continue reading →

The Brightest Sun and the Darkest Morning of the Year

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Tomorrow (January 5) is Perihelion Day!  The Earth journeys around the sun in an orbit that is ever-so-slightly elliptical (the elliptical nature of the orbit is so mild that the orbit basically looks like a circle that is slightly off-center from the sun).  This means that the distance between the sun and the Earth varies over the course of a year.  Today is the day on which that distance is a minimum, and the technical term for the point of minimum distance between the Earth and sun is “perihelion.” Today is also the day of the brightest sun of the year.  Since the distance to the sun is a minimum then the apparent size of the sun in the sky is a maximum (of course, as with the much-ballyhooed “Super Moons” that we hear about all the time, this effect is not very great). A thing I like to point out about perihelion is that it is a true Global … Continue reading →

Blaise Pascal: to God through Math

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There is something whose existence is known to many, but that is infinite, and thus ultimately unknowable.  In the words of one person who has studied this thing extensively, exploring it is similar to exploring the universe.  We can learn more and more about it, and yet, because it is infinite, what we learn amounts to nothing in comparison to what there is to learn. The thing I am talking about here is pi (π): the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, as in C = πD.  The mathematician David Chudnovsky, who developed algorithms for calculating pi to billions of digits, made the comparison between it and the universe. Mathematics is a form of knowledge that is terribly undervalued today.  Try saying something really favorable about mathematics to a group of people.  See what reaction you get.  Even highly-educated people feel free to talk about how they do not like math or are not good at … Continue reading →

The Longest Night of the Year

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Today is the day of the December solstice in Louisville, Kentucky, where I live!  This is the day on which the sun reaches its southernmost point in its yearly journey through the stars (as seen from Earth), and the precise moment at which the sun reaches that point is 11:19 PM for people in Louisville.  But this moment occurs at 5:19 AM at Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters.  So in Italy, the solstice is on the 22nd in the early morning, while in Louisville the solstice is on the 21st at 11:19 PM. Since the sun is now at its southernmost point, then, in the northern hemisphere, where the Vatican Observatory’s telescopes are all located, the maximum daily altitude that the sun reaches (when it is at the point halfway between rising and setting) is the lowest of the whole year.  The length of the sun’s day-long arc above the horizon is therefore shortest.  Consequently, the length of time … Continue reading →

Kentucky Science Conversations – Public Outreach and Pubs

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I am pleased to introduce another “Kentucky Science Conversations” guest blogger:  Gerry Williger, an astronomer at the University of Louisville here in Kentucky.  Gerry is the one whose efforts started the Kentucky Science Conversations with Louisville’s Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, that also involved Tim Dowling, Kate Bulinski, and me.  Dowling, Bulinksi, and Archbishop Kurtz have all written guest blogs for The Catholic Astronomer-Sacred Space Astronomy, so Gerry’ s post here rounds out the group. Gerry Williger got his Bachelor’s degree at Ohio State, then did a PhD at the University of Cambridge, England funded by a Marshall Scholarship. His thesis was on numerical simulations of intergalactic gas clouds, under Bob Carswell. He then worked as a post-doc at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, where he switched from doing theoretical work to observations, and followed that up with a post-doc at Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg. After eleven years abroad, he returned to the US to work on the Hubble Space … Continue reading →

The Darkest Evening of the Year

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Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. It is the darkest evening of the year!  You probably know about the December 21 solstice—it is the “winter solstice” in the northern hemisphere, and the “summer solstice” in the southern hemisphere.  In the northern hemisphere the December 21 solstice is the shortest day of the year; in the southern hemisphere it … Continue reading →

Smart Phones from Eels

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Have you used electrical technology today?  Something with a battery?  Something that sent information over wires?  Or wirelessly?  You surely used a smart phone, or the internet, or something plugged in to a wall outlet.  Perhaps you just listened to the radio. Where did this technology come from? The electric battery, so important to so many devices, started it all.  Alessandro Volta created the first one around the year 1800.  Studying electric eels led him to the principles of battery construction.  Volta’s battery (and yes, the term “voltage” comes from his name) was the first good way to generate a steady flow of electricity.  With it, electrical technology took off.  With batteries, people could communicate rapidly, by sending electrical signals over wires.  The telegraph was the start of that; now we have the internet.  We have electric cars, thanks to improvements both in batteries and in the electric motors that move those cars.  Michael Faraday’s discovery that electricity and magnetism … Continue reading →

Illuminating North America! (or, Anna and Fernando Find a Star)

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I am happy to re-introduce to readers of Sacred Space Astronomy to guest blogger Fernando Comerón. He is an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory. He previously wrote about using one of the world’s best telescopes at ESO (click here for that post). This new post is about discovering a star. Here Fernando describes the process of making a discovery in astronomy. But he also describes something else. He describes the excitement of discovery—of being one of only two people to know something, even if maybe it is, as he says, something most people might not care much about. Fernando Comerón, 9 Sept 2019 Please have a look at these two images, of two nebulae that may be well known to you. The one on the left is the Orion Nebula, and the right one is the North America nebula. In astrophysical terms, both nebulae are what astronomers call “HII regions”. “HII” means that they are mainly composed of ionized … Continue reading →

Errors Published for Children

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An abundance of erroneous information can be found in books.  Unfortunately, that includes science books for children.  Recently I have been perusing children’s science books, looking for good material for the Vatican Observatory Faith & Science site, and I keep coming across things like the images below—a page from Scientists Who Made History: Isaac Newton (published 2001 by Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers: A Harcourt Company).  This is from a section of the book that talks about Newton studying the motions of the planets. Note the caption that reads “An early diagram from the 1600s showing the movements of the planets, all of which are travelling around the Sun in the center of the illustration”.  But note that, in fact, the Sun is not in the center of the illustration.  The Earth is in the center.  It is not travelling around the Sun; the Sun is travelling around it. The diagram is of the theory of Tycho Brahe.  Brahe’s name can be … Continue reading →

Navy Jets Harassed by Magical Mermaid Tic Tac UFOs!

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Have you heard the news about the UFOs and the Navy pilots?  It has been covered by a variety of media outlets.  Years ago there existed a cheesy tabloid newspaper called the Weekly World News.  You could find copies for sale in the check-out lanes of grocery stores.  The front page of the WWN always featured some sort of bizarre story about half-human/half-bat creatures, or Bigfoot, or (of course) UFOs and Space Aliens.  The WWN is gone from the checkout lanes, but today it is the major news outlets that are providing coverage of UFOs and Space Aliens. The UFO coverage relates to U.S. Navy pilots who have reported encountering objects shaped like “Tic Tac” candies, but large (up to 40 feet long).  The Tic Tacs reportedly fly about and perform all sorts of incredible aerial maneuvers.   Just recently the Navy confirmed that certain video clips related to these reports (video clips that have been banging around the internet for … Continue reading →