Reenacting Galileo’s Experiments

Sometimes it’s better to quote the source instead of paraphrasing. Here’s the text describing Dr. Paolo Palmieri on the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science website, the words that made us immediately invite him to talk to us at Café Scientifique:

“Paolo has an eclectic background. For some time he worked as an engineer trying to make Ferrari Formula One cars run faster. Since he was not terribly successful he thought that the history and philosophy of science would be the next logical step in his career. Engineers have recourse to funny logic sometimes. Thus he explored the possibility of explaining Galileo's theory of tides according to a model he had developed to investigate the dynamics of fuel sloshing within Formula One tanks. This time he was terribly successful. Finally, he managed to earn a PhD and convince the Pitt folks to hire him.”

The self-deprecatory sense of humor, love of science, and the variety of job experiences convinced us that we needed to learn more about this man. Digging a little further, we found that Dr. Palmieri has established an experimental laboratory called HPSLab at Pitt as part of the unique Experimental History and Philosophy of Science program, ExpHPS (http://www.exphps.org/). In his lab he tries to replicate Galileo’s pendulum experiments, among others, this time with electronic sensors to collect data to be fed into a computer model to develop a deeper understanding. His work is helping to settle some controversies surrounding what we thought were simple, well-understood experiments. He says he wants to “see what Galileo saw” by “going behind the scenes.”

Please join us next Monday to hear about what Galileo saw. We’re sure it will be a fun and informative experience. Hope to see you there!

Tim Palucka and Angela Stabryla, co-organizers

Café Scientifique Pittsburgh