There is a certain irony in this, coming from a man who’s nickname is also the name of one of NASA’s most famous interplanetary probes…
Well spotted Rolltide, but without his permission. I have no doubt he would condone proper scientific investigation but not anti-Genesis propaganda NASA (and the Vatican Observatory) indulges in. Here is a little info on Cassini.
Giovanni Domenico Cassini, ( 16125-1712) was without doubt God’s astronomer, the greatest observer of his or any era, a man who can be said to be the last of the truly great Catholic geocentricists. Now while the name Cassini will ring a faint bell with astronomers, surveyors, a few historians and some NASA Saturn probe fans, the world at large will never have been told of him. We must remember that even history belongs to the victors, and the Earthmovers are no exception. That then, is why he is not a household name like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler or Newton. No man, no matter how qualified, whose reputation and work challenges that of the Copernican establishment now ensconced in both Church and State could be allowed his proper place in history.
Domenico Cassini’s talent as a surveyor was also well known. In 1657 he was asked by none other than Pope Alexander VII to resolve a dispute regarding the flow of the River Reno between Bologna and Ferrara that was causing flooding. For the next six years Cassini was occupied with similar work around the Papal States, spending only a little of his time at astronomical studies.
Cassini’s reputation spread far and wide. At that time King Louis XIV of France had approved a new Académie Royale des Sciences at Paris. The King’s great Minister, Colbert, with the prestige of the Académie in mind, sought to attract to France several famous foreign scientists such as Christiaan Huygens to work at the Academy. In 1667, he asked Domenico Cassini to join them in building and running a great observatory. Cassini decided to go for a little while, but the Pope refused him permission for he was considered too valuable to Rome at the time. Pope Alexander VII died in late 1667 and the new pope, Clement IX, did let the loyal and Catholic Cassini go ‘on loan’ to the Frankish Sun King. Cassini left for France on 25 February 1669. Delighted with the superb conditions and instruments at the Paris observatory, he was soon down to work. Cassini made many discoveries including.
Cassini’s discoveries were many. He opposed Newton at every turn, including falsifying theories his ‘laws’ were based on, including the shape of the earth. Olaus Rōmer, in his famous 1675 declaration that light has a finite speed, actually used the tables published in Cassini’s Ephemerides Bononienses Mediceorem Siderum (1668). Cassini was the one who discovered the speed of light but was waiting for further confirmation of it before publishing his findings.
Cassini was a loyal son of the Catholic Church. He had, we note, the charity and kindness of a saint, and that his respect for his contemporaries and their work, plus a modesty of his own, reached ‘miraculous proportions’. His humility caused him to avoided adulation and he presented his findings with the least fuss. After he died, his friend said of him:
‘We are delighted and lucky to have you Monsieur [the Academy’s secretary Mr de Fontenelle]. Who could have represented as you Domenicio Cassini’s worth? He was truly what we must call a rare man. His astronomical discoveries were good enough to deserve him this name: but he attained it with many other proud achievements. However clever he may have been, he was very assiduous for reading. After having spent the night reading in the brilliant book of sky, he made use of his days to consult the imperfect mediations of other astronomers from every language and every country; he really knew more than what they could have said but he was looking for what had been said all the same. He sought not only to know the real system of the world, but to study and guess the system that the ancients or the Tartars could have imagined; to grasp past, present and even future, not by frivolous predictions about independent elements in stars, but, by infallible calculations of their movements, to fix up to the so-called loss of the comet, it’s what we’ve seen him do and that nobody has done before him.
But, in the middle of this so astounding knowledge, we’ve seen inside him an even more miraculous modesty. People all over have admired him; the idolatrous centuries would have built temples to him, yet he was the only one who seemed to ignore his merit. Who has ever been so simple in his manners, so reserved in his speeches, so shy in what he knew better, so sweet with those he knew the less? The rise in his genius gave in the goodness of his heart, more pleasant than admirable, and more humble than scientist. Very different from these Chinese blinds who don’t know other good except sky, he only saw in sky the invisible God of sky. Religious observer of the slightest duties, his consistency was obvious and was spreading in everything. Friend of the easiest company, adorable father, academician sincerely liking all his colleagues, and universally loved by everyone, he had known how to hide his superiority with his sweetness, to skin the science of all its swelling, and to be indoctrinated only by religion.
What a loss to lose such a great man, if he hadn’t left us a son and a nephew in whom we already see him come back to life. I won’t extend in their praise; their works will do this better than me. I will neither start yours, Monsieur, unless you want to lend me the talent to praise you with such a dignity as you praise others.’
