Category Archives: Priests and Religious of Science

The Vatican Observatory, when it was in Vatican City

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Readers of The Catholic Astronomer, check out this wonderful bit of 1929 silent newsreel on the Vatican Observatory. This was produced by Pathé Pictorial and features telescopes, Vatican Observatory personnel, all “in action”.  It also shows some pretty cool photos taken through Vatican Observatory telescopes. The video is also available via the British Pathé website. The shot of a dome, rotating atop a tower on the Vatican City wall, is perhaps my favorite.  Does anyone know the identities of the various people seen in the film?  Br. Guy? This video is also featured on the Vatican Observatory’s Faith and Science library.   … Continue reading →

That remarkable Pi

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Wednesday, March 14, is Pi Day. If you are not familiar with Pi Day, here is the story:  March 14 is called Pi Day because it is 3/14, and of course 3.14 is Pi rounded to two digits (Pi being 3.1415926535897932384626433832795…).  It has been celebrated in various forms for thirty years.  Google did a Pi Day Doodle in 2010. Pi is fascinating.  It is infinite, but it is not repeating and it is not ‘random’.  It means something—namely the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.  Within its infinity are many interesting things.  Its infinity of digits contain all sorts of numbers; you can explore what is in the first two billion digits using the SubIdiom Pi calculator (click here for the calculator).  Try it out.  Put in some digits.  See if those digits can be found in the first two billion digits of Pi. For example, how about the numbers 1-9 in ascending order?  SubIdiom says … Continue reading →

The Art and Observations of Maria Clara Eimmart and Johann Georg Locher

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Maria Clara Eimmart was an eighteenth-century German astronomer and illustrator who created remarkable depictions of the moon as seen through a telescope.  I learned about her from the book Astronomie in Franken, a 2015 volume, edited by Gudrun Wolfschmidt, of papers related to astronomy in the Franconia region of Germany.  A chapter by Regina Umland focuses on the life and work of Eimmart. Eimmart was tutored in art, languages, mathematics, and astronomy by her father.  Her father ran a successful business in Nuremburg as an artist and engraver, but had a strong interest in astronomy.  He even built a private observatory on the city wall.  Eimmart became a skilled artist, and she became especially good at representing the moon seen telescopically.  She produced over 300 renderings of the moon while she was in her late teens and early twenties.  Her lunar artwork laid the foundation for better lunar studies. One of Eimmart’s works of lunar art—a depiction of a crescent … Continue reading →

Pope Gregory XIII, Jesuits, the V.O., and the Big Bang – all on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

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Readers of The Catholic Astronomer, did you catch the little discussion of Catholic Astronomers on a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert?  Neil deGrasse Tyson was the guest (apparently Tyson is Colbert’s most frequent guest) and he prompted a short discussion of the astronomical connection of many holidays, which in turn lead into a discussion of Pope Gregory XIII and the Gregorian Calendar, Jesuit Astronomers, the Vatican Observatory, Fr. Georges Lemaître and the Big Bang theory, and the science of “Team RC” (i.e. “Team Roman Catholic”).  Wow—astronomy and history on late night television!  And, the exchange was entertaining and the information was accurate enough.  So, for this astronomer-and-historian-of-science-who-writes-for-the-Vatican-Observatory, it was a good day!  Check out the Colbert-Tyson discussion below: If you want to know more about these topics that Colbert and Tyson touched upon, they are topics that are well-covered in the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science on-line resource. Have a look and explore: Calendars and Pope … Continue reading →

Stuff Happens?

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It seems that the Governor General of Canada and some of my students at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Kentucky have a thing in common: They seem to be of the opinion—the bad opinion—the wrong opinion—that stuff just happens. This past semester that bad opinion appeared in the essay tests of a number of my Astronomy 101 students, and it appeared frequently enough to trigger my “bothered scientist” reflex. The exam was on the Big Bang. I had asked the students to discuss, among other things, whether they thought the Big Bang appealed to most people more than older ideas about the formation of the universe, or less. A fair number of students said they thought most people would find the Big Bang theory more appealing, because (in their take on this) in the Big Bang theory the universe just happens: space and time emerge from essentially nothing, and the idea that stuff just happens makes sense. The universe … Continue reading →

From the Faith & Science Pages: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Story of ‘g’

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Have you noticed the little ads for the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s “Faith & Science” resource?  It is a collection of articles, videos, book excerpts, selections from this blog, and even whole books that pertain to faith and science.  One thing you will find there is an article from the magazine Physics Today, written by Yours Truly, on Fr. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, S. J., and his experiments regarding gravity.  The story is fascinating.  Fr. Riccioli was the first person to try to conduct experiments to accurately measure gravity.  He did his experiments in the 1640’s, using various towers in Bologna, Italy (all of which are still there, by the way).  He used some very ingenious techniques to measure time in these experiments.  He got all sorts of fellow Jesuits to help him.  He obtained very accurate results for the value of the downward acceleration caused by gravity, or ‘g’ (students in introductory physics classes everywhere do experiments to measure ‘g’), all … Continue reading →

From the Faith & Science pages: The Louvain Lectures of Robert Bellarmine

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Have you noticed the little ads for the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s “Faith & Science” resource?  This is a collection of articles, videos, book excerpts, selections from this blog, and even whole books that pertain to faith and science.  There are all kinds of interesting things in it, such as a poem of prayer and praise written by James Clerk Maxwell (Maxwell developed the theory of electromagnetic waves—he ranks just behind Newton and Einstein in the Hall of Fame of Science).  And, there are the Louvain Lectures of a young Jesuit named Robert Bellarmine (click here to go to the Louvain Lectures entry on the Faith & Science pages). These lectures were published by the Vatican Observatory in 1984.  They were translated into English from Latin by Ugo Baldini and Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (who was Director of the Vatican Observatory at that time).  They are the teaching notes of the young Bellarmine—later to be Cardinal Bellarmine, still later … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: The Hows of Science

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This entry is part of 159 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in July, 2012 We met this month [July 2012] in a small pensione in Loreto, next the cathedral built around the famous “flying house” (reputed to be the home of the Blessed Virgin, transported from Palestine to Italy – some say by angels – in the 13th century) to plan the next steps for our Vatican Observatory. What’s the future for our telescope in Arizona, and the fundraising that supports it? What about converting our old telescope domes in Castel Gandolfo into a visitor center? But a big topic for the group was welcoming seven young astronomers to our group. They come from many countries – three from the US, plus an Italian, a Czech, a Congolese, and an Indian. They’ve studied a variety of scientific topics, from theorizing on subatomic strings to observing meteor showers, at traditional PhD programs in universities around the world. And their immediate challenge now is trying to fit the style … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Jesuit Science

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This entry is part of 159 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in June 2014 [In 2014] Heythrop College celebrated its 400th anniversary. Originally founded in Belgium to educate British Jesuits, it moved back to England during the French Reign of Terror. Located since then at various locations, it finally moved to London in 1970, becoming a part of the University of London in 1971. An anniversary like this calls for a party, of course. On June 19-20, hundreds of scholars gathered at Senate House to reflect on Jesuit scholarship. Among the celebrants were Lord Williams and Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicholas. I was invited to talk on Jesuit science. [The link above is the recording of my talk, and runs about 55 minutes; in my opinion, it’s more entertaining than this column was!] What has been the particular Jesuit mark on science? One thing that struck me was how entering the Jesuits order gave young men the chance to be a scientist regardless of family … Continue reading →

A V.O. Conference on Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Spacetime Singularities

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Do you recall the post from a while back that focused on the research being done by Vatican Observatory scientists? This is another “Science at the V.O.” post. From the evening of Monday May 8 through the morning of Friday May 12 the V.O. hosted a conference entitled “Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Spacetime Singularities”. The conference was organized by Dr. Gabriele Gionti, S. J. When I was visiting the V.O. in March I had the pleasure of meeting, talking with, and even hanging out at an Albano Laziale coffee shop expounding upon Kentucky community college life to, Fr. Gionti. Gionti is a native of Italy who earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in physics in the 1990’s, joined the Jesuits in 2000, was assigned to the V.O. in 2004, and ordained a priest in 2010. Since joining the Jesuits he has picked up several more degrees, in philosophy and theology. Gionti is a very educated man, but if you … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Edge of the World

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This entry is part of 159 in the series Across the Universe

  This column first ran in The Tablet in April 2015 At the edge of the world, the top of the world, is a window of our world into the rest of the universe: the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile. Nearby are other large observatories at Cerro Tololo, Las Campanas, and the Alma radio array at Chajnantor. These telescopes have shown how the expansion of our universe is accelerating; they’ve explored hundreds of planets around other stars; they’ve traced the motions of stars orbiting a super-massive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. I am visiting [in 2015] here with a half-dozen patrons who support such telescopes (including the Vatican’s own telescope in Arizona). Along with our host, Dr. Fernando Cameron, our small group includes a businessman who sits on the boards of universities; a retired schoolteacher; a NASA engineer… eclectic in background, but joined by a fascination of the bigger universe, and the … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Perturbing the Universe

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This entry is part of 159 in the series Across the Universe

  This column first ran in The Tablet in April 2014 A member of our Vatican Observatory community, Fr. Bill Stoeger, died of cancer last month [2014]. I could say that Bill was both the smartest man and the holiest man I have known; but he would have rejected that characterization out of hand. So I will only say that his goodness and his genius never ceased to move me. He’s the only person I know who could work the mathematics of the Big Bang, and also direct retreats for religious women. Bill’s religious faith did not control the science he did, but how he did it. For example, more often than not he collaborated with scientists from the developing world – South Africa and Brazil in particular. And he showed a special patience with those members of our scientific community who could be brilliant but eccentric and sometimes hard to deal with. His scientific output was astonishing. At Cambridge … Continue reading →