Francesco Maria Grimaldi
                     (1618-1663)
 
 
 
 

    On April 2,1618 a future italian physicist and astronomer entered the world. His name was Francesco Maria Grimaldi.
    Francesco grew up in a wealthy 17th century family in Bologna, where his father made a great deal of money selling silk
    When Francesco was old enough for schooling he descided to leave his family and live a life of God and science, as a Jesuit.
    Jesuits are men who are part of a Roman Catholic religious order. They are something like monks, however they feel a need to study God, but they also feel a need to teach and help others and not live in solitude.
    In the year of 1632, Grimaldi packed his bags and left to study in the Jesuit college at Novellara.
    At Novellara he was greatly influenced into philosophy and studied it between 1635-1638 at the Jesuit college of Parma and Ferrara. Between 1642 and 1645 he studied theology in Bolognaat the Jesuit College of Santa Lucia. Two years later, he recieved his doctorate in theology.
    Grimaldi eventually took on teaching jobs, teaching rhetoric, humanities, astronomy, and optics. He was even appointed to teach philosophy, but he took ill, and had to take the less time consuming position of teaching mathematics.
    However, this teaching job led to the meeting of Grimaldi and Giovanni Riccioli.
    Giovanni was a prefect of studies when Grimaldi started teaching. Grimaldi conducted experiments for him, and Riccioli credits him as being essential for the completion of his Almagedtum Novum.
    The Almagestum Novum is a map of the moon's surface. Grimaldi gave the names of illustrious philosophers and astronomers to the elevations and the depressions on the moon. These names are still used today.
    Grimaldi had a real skill for devising, building, and operating new instruments. He even made a useful quadrant that worked efficiently.
    The two scientists worked together quite often, and were far more peers and friends than patron and client. However, Grimaldi's more sucessful work and important work was done on his own. It was done in optics. A field in which he became a worthy predecessor of Newton and Huygens.
    Grimaldi made many discoveries of fundalmental importance, but they were much in advance of the theory of the time, and their significance was not recognized until over a century later.
    One discovery Francesco discovered was the phenomenon of diffraction. Before Grimaldi's discovery people believed that familiar waves like sound waves and water waves bend around obstacles, whereas light appears to travel in perfect straight lines, however, he proved that this wasn't the whole truth. Grimaldi demonstrated that when a beam of light passes through two small holes, one behind the other, and then falls on a dark surface,the beam of light on that surface is a little wider than the original beam. Grimaldi concluded that the beamhad been bent outward by a slight amount at the edges of the hole.
    Grimaldi also discovered that the closer together the holes are the wider the beam of light will be on the dark surface.
    Many scientist and experts today believe that Grimaldi had to be one of the first people to observe the dispersion of the sun's in passing through a prism, in order to know so much about the way light bends.
    Grimaldi died in Bologna on Dec.28, 1663 of natural causes. However, months before his death he finished writing his book on all of his experiments, entitled "Physicomathesis de lumine, coloribus,et iride, aliisque annexis", which was later published after his death.
    This book would later influence many great scientist like Young, Fresnal, Hooke, Huygens, and Newton.
    Without Francesco Grimaldi we would no very little about optics today because he become a worthy predecessor of many more known scientists that improved upon his theories.
 
 
 
 

    Reference

Brock, H.M.(1999). Catholic Encyclopedia: Francesco Maria Grimaldi [Online]. Available http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07034a.htm [2001, January,11]

Hall, Marie Boas(1978). Francesco Maria Grimaldi. Encyclopedia Americana (Vol.13, pp494). Danbury:Grolier.

Mulligan, Joseph F.(1976).Introductory College Physics Second Edition. New York: Mc Graw-Hill, Inc.

Westfall, Richard S.(1995). Catalog of the Scientific Community: Grimaldi, Francesco Maria [Online]. Available             http:/es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/files/grimaldi. html [2001,January,11].