How Frs. Riccioli and Dechales Argued that Science Shows the Earth to be at Rest – The Coriolis Effect

  • Article (blog post)
  • 600 words
  • Level: all audiences

In this post on The Catholic Astronomer blog, Christopher Graney discusses how the effect of Earth’s rotation on objects travelling through the air (now known as the “Coriolis effect”) was foreseen by Jesuit scientists, who argued that the absence of this effect indicated that Copernicus was wrong about the Earth being in motion. This scientific argument against the Earth’s motion turned out to be wrong because the effect did in fact exist, but was very hard to detect.

Click here to read the full article on The Catholic Astronomer – the blog of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.