Teaching Galileo? Get to know Riccioli! -- What a forgotten Italian astronomer can teach students about how science works

摘要

What can physics students learn about science from those scientists who gotthe answers wrong? Students encounter little science history, and what theyhave encountered typically portrays scientists as The People with the RightAnswers. But those who got the wrong answers can teach students that in scienceanswers are often elusive -- not found in the back of a book or discovered in abold stroke of genius. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, a 17th-century astronomerwho argued that science supported a geocentric universe, and whose argumentsmade sense given the knowledge of the time -- is an example of such a person.