Birth of Galileo

today is the 443rd anniversary of Galileo Galilei's birth......

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. " Galileo

I think he may have been speaking about himself in this quote ?

Galileo was a prolific writer of books and letters, does anybody know how letters in Galileo's time actually got from his hand to the intended recipient ? I am doing a bit of research for college, on Galileo as a communicator in his own era.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

Infallible Apologies
James Warner

“Galileo”

“John Paul II appears to have been motivated largely by a desire to clear
The Church’s name rather than to make amends with Galileo’s memory.
The pope’s statement made no mention of the Inquisitors’ treatment of the
69-year-old astronomer, which included a forced recantation under threat
of torture and death and denial of medical care during his imprisonment.
Instead, the pope had urged the commission to discover “the wrongs, from
whatever side they may have come” and deemed the affair a “tragic mutual
incomprehension” between Galileo and “theologians of that age,” who could
not reconcile heliocentrism and scripture. Since Galileo could deduce but
not prove that the earth moved around the sun, the commission found
that both parties had acted in good faith; to the pope, the investigation
showed that a belief in the “fundamental opposition between science and
faith . . . now belongs in the past”.

Regards
Mike

Ref: muse.jhu.edu/journals/sais_review/v025/25.2warner.html

When the top 100 Nazi writers wrote a book called "100 Authors against Einstein" Einstein famously retorted:

"If I were wrong ONE would have been enough"

(Incidentally I believe the saying originates in classical Greece.)

Peter.

Incidentally there is something that has always bothered me:

Crater Tycho is given the FIRST name of Tycho Brahe.
BUT
Crater Galilei is given the SECOND name of Galileo Galilei.

(I dont have much else to bother me obviously!)

Peter.

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. " Galileo

I think he may have been speaking about himself in this quote ?

Galileo was a prolific writer of books and letters, does anybody know how letters in Galileo's time actually got from his hand to the intended recipient ? I am doing a bit of research for college, on Galileo as a communicator in his own era.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

Dierdre I have several academic sources and comments on this to long to post. Are you still doing the research? You can PM me.

Galileo in Siderius Nunctus (more a series of pamphlets) wrote in the vernacular - Italian - Not Latin. so he had popular appeal. When he was being tried (the second inquisition - there were TWO 1516 and 1533 i thin from memory) the Dog of the Lords (Domini-canes) were put into operation by the Jesuits (primarily a swiss adviser to the inquisition who Galileo had embarrased over discovering sun spots )to "pamphlet2 about htis heretic i.e. the dominicans whiped up the "Sun" REaders of the day.