Galileo Galilei

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Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642) was an Italian scientist and astronomer who supported the (now widely accepted) Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.

He also unintentionally lent his name to the logical fallacy called the Galileo gambit.

Discoveries[edit]

This lava flow neatly illustrates Galileo's law of falling bodies.

Galileo discovered Jupiter's four largest moons, known as the "Galilean moons", using his superb homemade telescope.^{[note 1]} Observing moons orbiting around another planet was contrary to the notion the Church held dear — that everything in the universe revolved around the Earth. Galileo discovered other new features; he found that the Sun is not immaculate, as was previously believed, but has sunspots, and discovered mountains and craters on the moon. Galileo discovered that Venus has phases, which was incompatible with the old Ptolemaic geocentric system. He argued that if air resistance is negligible or non-existent, then two bodies dropped from the same height will reach the ground at the same time, regardless of their masses. He proved that bodies, when thrown at an angle, will follow along a parabolic trajectory. After Newton, we know that this, like Kepler's first law, is a consequence of the law of universal gravitation. Galileo formulated the law of the pendulum, but failed to build a time-keeping device before he died. Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton developed the theory further and provided the scientific underpinning which led to its universal acceptance. Kepler showed that the planets orbit the sun in ellipses rather than perfect circles as previous heliocentrists had thought.

Religious persecution[edit]

Galileo was forced to recant by the Catholic Inquisition, but famously was alleged to have muttered "E pur si muove" - "And yet, it moves".^{[note 2]} For his recantation, Galileo was not executed as a heretic, but instead sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.^{[note 3]}

Centuries later, it would be pointed out that Pope Clement VII had tried to encourage Copernicus to publish his heliocentric work in 1536,^[2] but the work would not be published until after Copernicus' death in 1543… just in time for the Council of Trent. But contrary to what one could expect, the Council of Trent accepted Copernicus' heliocentric system as a mathematical convenience, because it made calendar reform far easier then a geocentric system did.^[3] Long criticized for its treatment of Galileo as being anti-science, the Catholic Church now was being portrayed as hypocritical, since a Pope and the Council of Trent had accepted Copernicus' heliocentric system; the concept itself wasn't heretical, though after Galileo, the Church had treated it as such. Finally, in 1992, the Catholic Church expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, though they sidestepped addressing the whole matter of Pope Clement VII and Council of Trent.^{[note 4]}

Later scholarship has stated that, although the Church did reject his arguments, it was over proving his findings, rather than the substance.^[4] His forced recanting was over accusations that he had insulted the Pope in his second work, in which he satirized the Pope as a character named "Simplicio," rather than over his theories themselves.^[5] In short, he was prosecuted for being the Renaissance version of a troll.

It is a common myth that conservative Christians of the day declined to look through his telescope.^[6]

Relationship between Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton[edit]

Another take on the observation that Newton stood on the shoulders of giants is that, since Galileo Galilei died in January of 1642 and Isaac Newton was born in December of that same year, and since Newton’s work more or less takes over where Galileo’s leaves off, it is the logical, rational thing to conclude that Newton was Galileo reincarnated. This perspective is not adhered to in the scientific community.

Quotes[edit]

See also[edit]

• Aristarchus
• Copernicus
• Galileo gambit
• Giordano Bruno
• Tycho Brahe
• Johannes Kepler
• Isaac Newton
• Relativity

External links[edit]

• The War Upon Galileo

Notes[edit]

References[edit]