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Galileo

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Galileo Galilei is the sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian physicist, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who is largely credited for being the founding figure of the modern science. He is also considered to be at the center of the greatest controversy that concerned the relationship between religion and science, the so-called "Galileo Affair."

This short introduction aims to give a concise and representative view of Galileo's life, his important scientific discoveries, the popularization of science that he engaged in, and the controversies that all of his scientific activities had engendered. The book is written with an interested non-expert in mind, but it is neither simplistic nor does it skim over any of the most important historical or scientific facts.

It is hard for the modern reader to truly appreciate how much about the motion, the world and our place in it we take for granted. Galileo has paved the way for many of the most fundamental concepts that have become cornerstone of the scientific worldview. He helped define and place on a solid experimental and conceptual foundation things like velocity, acceleration, gravity, and many others. This short book describes many of the experiments and observations that Galileo engaged over throughout his lifetime. Of particular importance is his invention of the astronomical telescope and the important discoveries that it enabled him to achieve, such as the mountains on Moon, satellites of Jupiter, and rings of Saturn.

Over the centuries there has been a lot of scholarly (and not so scholarly) writing dedicated to the "Galileo Affair." There has not been a clear consensus reached on even what really transpired at the actual trial, little less on the motivations of various actors and the impact that the Galileo's sentence has had on either Galileo himself or the relation between science and religion in general. It doesn't help that this incident has been appropriated over the centuries by all sorts of partisan viewpoints, and therefore it becomes almost impossible to take a dispassionate and objective view of the situation. A few things, however, are quite clear. The original opposition to Galileo's pro-Copernican viewpoints and the new astronomical discoveries that seemed to have supported it primarily came from philosophers and astronomers. Furthermore, even when the Catholic Church's authorities started to look into the controversy, the subjugation of science to religion had never been an issue. Anyone familiar with the Catholic Theology or many Catholic scientists and astronomers that either preceded or followed Galileo would admit as much. In fact, Stillman Drake argues in this short book that Galileo acted in the way he did precisely out of concern to put Catholic Theology beyond any present or future conflict with scientific discoveries. This is not a widespread opinion of Galileo's true motivations, and is certainly not something that could be claimed based on the written evidence alone, but Drake presents a very persuasive case. This viewpoint helps make sense of a few facts surrounding Galileo's trial that otherwise remain puzzling, such as Galileo's very cautious and gradual approach to the Copernican ideas and the close lifelong personal relations that he had with various bishops and cardinals. At the very least these are not the characteristics of an anti-religious zealot.

Galileo is one of the most important figures in the history of science. He is also someone who has been for almost four centuries at the focus of a lot of controversy and misinformation. This little book goes a long way in clearing some of the misconceptions about Galileo and introducing the reader to the seminal achievements of this great man.

The thing I like about Galileo, as he was portrayed in the book, is his patient rationalism and scholarly humility; all in the service of "truth." His whole life he steadily worked at one problem after another to slowly, and single-handly, build the foundations for not just Astronomy, but almost the entire practice of science and the scientific method itself. One of the most important people in the entire intellectual history of mankind, it would seem.

He helped to set science free from superstition and "magic."

It is amusing, yet sad, to think of all the popular nonsense that was repeated by the "intellectuals" and "great minds" of the era, and had been repeated by their forbearers for the previous 2,000 years. MOST of what these "great minds" held to be true was just fantasy, and delusion. Any commonly dull seventh grader in the public school system today would easily laugh them out of a philosophical discussion. And yet these "great minds" were held to be the "most lucid" and "most intelligent" men of their era. An object lesson to be sure.

What will the school children of the future think about the "serious truths" that WE, ourselves hold most sacred?

Since man's capacity for intelligence has not increased biologically since that era, we must consider the possibility that much of what WE hold to be TRUE is likewise, delusion and fantasy masquerading in a coat of serious pretentiousness and social fawning.

Drake says that Galileo aimed to replace the primacy of the philosophical quest for the truth with the scientific quest. Drake pictures Galileo as one who understands that Science does not bring absolute truth but closer approximations to truth. He sees the hostility to Galileo as having come not so much from the church as from contempoary philosophers. As the book- jacket states ' in a startling reintepretation of evidence, the hypothesis is here advanced that Galileo in his struggle for freedom of scientific inquiry was mainly concerned not to promote Copernicanism as such, but to prevent responsible theologians from risking the Church's future credibility by taking up a position on any scientific matter at all." So the consquence of Galileo's action was a final parting of the paths of science and philosophy.