[axomhacker]

I love these kind of stories. Such stories fills me up with an immense sense of appreciation for scientists/philosophers/thinkers from the post-middle-ages.

Also, why I'm absolutely loving the coursera class on astronomy: https://class.coursera.org/introastro-2012-001/.

If you have not peaked into it yet, the way Dr. Plesser explains concepts and bridges them with the historical advances leaves a lasting impression. I wish we had classes like this back in school.

[notimetorelax]

Sounds interesting, thank you for the suggestion. Here's the direct link to course description:

https://www.coursera.org/course/introastro

Although course started a while ago they still give access to the materials is you subscribe now.

[axomhacker]

Also, if you like the "Introduction to Astronomy" course, there's a follow-up (although from a different university, Caltech) coming up: "Galaxies and Cosmology": https://www.coursera.org/course/cosmo

[JonnieCache]

And if that isn't enough for you there's a complete series of stanford cosmology lectures from Leonard Susskind (!) starting here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=32wIKa...

It's part of a comprehensive course in modern physics, all taught by susskind, and all on that same youtube channel. There's classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, the aforementioned cosmology and more iirc. He's a great teacher, it's amazing that you can just dial up tens of thousands of dollars worth of education like this.