Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site phs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!duke!phs!paul From: paul@phs.UUCP (Paul C. Dolber) Newsgroups: net.astro Subject: Galileo's Anagram Message-ID: <951@phs.UUCP> Date: Fri, 19-Oct-84 13:26:28 EDT Article-I.D.: phs.951 Posted: Fri Oct 19 13:26:28 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 21-Oct-84 15:03:56 EDT Organization: Dept. Physiol., DUMC Lines: 20 In Evan Connell's "Points for a Compass Rose," which is a fascinating book having nothing do do with astronomy, I came across the following: "Galileo, having recognized the phases of Venus and anxious to claim credit without revealing what he had learned until he could verify it, published the anagram: *Haec immatura a me jam frustra leguntur, o.y.* I've gathered this too soon. Or, these letters could be rearranged to read: *Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater amorum.* The mother of Love follows the phases of Diana." The book is a strange mixture of the bizarre but true and the flagrantly untrue; does any astrobuff out there know if this story is true? And for that matter, just what Galileo meant in the rearranged version? (I'm no astronomer.) Regards, and thanks if you come up with anything, Paul Dolber @ DUMC (...duke!phs!paul).