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GALILEO.
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Factors involved in the acceptability of his theories in science & theology.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Factors involved in the acceptability of his theories in science & theology.
Paper Introduction:
Galileo is perhaps the first scientist, at least since the Greek Archimedes, to be well known to the general public.
He is famous partly for his real achievements in physics and astronomy, partly for legendary achievements (such as dropping cannon-balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa), and partly for having been tried for heresy by the Inquisition and compelled
to recant his belief, now universally accepted, that the Earth moves in space.
Only in the last few years has the Catholic Church officially "reversed" his conviction. Yet his ideas, in spite of the violent controversy they stirred and the official condemna-tion they brought him, came to be generally accepted by educated opinion within a few years after his trial. Why were these ideas, though pronounced heretical, so widely and quickly accep
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It is as an observer--the first to make serious use of the telescope--that he is rememberedtoday, and as a propagandist for Copernicanism that he incurred the wrathof the Church authorities. Already, in the Middle Ages, scholastic thinkers such as NicholasBuridan proposed revised theories of motions such as the "impetus" theory(Kuhn 119-122). The Sleepwalkers. Tycho did this, adopting themathematics of Copernicus, but nailing the Earth down and letting the wholesystem whirl around it. Aristotle proposed two "laws of motion:" first, that objects tend tomove towards the location natural to their composition (for fire, up abovethe layer of air; for rock or other solid matter, towards the center of theearth), second,that motion in any other direction will end to cease (Koestler, 1 8-11).These "laws" do quite well in explaining a variety of motions: a cart willstop moving unless it is continually pushed or pulled, and if pushed off acliff, it will drop until its downward motion is stopped short. Works CitedDrake, Stillman. Diagrams of trajectories from the"impetus" period showed a period of straight-line motion, then a downwardcurve as impetus gave way to gravity, then a straight drop. The impetus theory thus represented a first step towards the idea of"momentum" as Galileo analyzed it, and as we under-stand it today. It is for this reason that the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus,the "ancient Copernicus," made so little headway (Kuhn 42-44). Itexplained no observed phenomena better than the Ptolemaic theory did,and it was much less "natural." But by the time of Copernicus and, later, Galileo, the very success ofthe Ptolemaic theory had brought it into deep trouble (Kuhn 68-69). And, finally, thenew observations made through the telescope revealed a host of new facts(Koyre 88-94)--the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter among others--that wereeither predicted by or at least more consistant with Copernican astronomy. Galileo and the Scien- tific Revolution. The crisis was already at hand.Radical and contra-intuitive though the newphysics and astronomy championed by Galieo were, they offered powerfuland straightforward solutions to just those problems that most clearlyhighlighted the growing weaknesses of theold theories (Kuhn 115-117). Trans. As unnatural as the system of Earth-centereduniverse of epicycles and eccentrics seems to us today, it is intuitive,and it does a very good job of explaining the motions of the heavenlybodies. It wasthis demand that Galileo's theory of motion met (Fermi and Bernardini 96-111). Galileo is perhaps the first scientist, at least since the GreekArchimedes, to be well known to the general public.He is famous partly for his real achievements in physics and astronomy,partly for legendary achievements (such as dropping cannon-balls off theLeaning Tower of Pisa), and partly for having been tried for heresy by theInquisition and compelledto recant his belief, now universally accepted, that the Earth moves inspace. This model doesa fairly good job of representing the motion of a thrown ball or rock. We will consider his work in physics--his principal concern for most of his career (Drake 15)--first. This theory held that a thrown object received an impetusfrom the thrower, and that this impetus was only gradually lost. The Copernican Revolution. The result was a scientific revolution: a fundamentalchange of world-view in which those with an interest and educa- tionin science came to view the world around them in a radically new way--a waythat posed troubling questions for philosophy and theology, but which inthe end led to the understanding of a vastly greater and mote varied world. But even the telescope would not have by itself provoked a crisis,nor have prompted the wholesale abandonment of acenturies-old, well-articulated world view. Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo. Indynamics, or the physicsof motion, however, the Greeks were much less successful. It had become amonstrosity. The reason for this swift acceptance, it will be suggested, is thatGalileo's theories and observations, radical though they were, were badlyneeded by people who were trying to make sense of the physical world. This was just the problem that Galileo's new physics wasadmirably equipped to solve--and this comfortable consistency is what ledGalileo and others increasingly to think of Copernican-ism not only asa mathematical model, but as a true picture of reality. It hadclearly delineated the gross motions of the heavenly bodies, thus allowingconcentration on the fine details --details which the sixteenth-centuryrequirements of navigation and calendar-reform had sharply highlighted.Because Ptolemaic theory had done so well in approximating planetarymotions that astronomers were now expected to successfully clear up evenminor discrepancies--and this, the Ptolemaic theory could almost, but notquite, succeed in doing. Why were these ideas, though pronounced heretical, so widely andquickly accepted? New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1959.Koyre, Alexandre. Moreover, these new theories, instead of beingpushed into excessive complexity and in-consistency by modifications and bynew observations, tended to grow steadily simpler and more robust,culminating in he great synthesis of Newton. Against this ever-more-cumbersome model was thrown the less"intuitive" but simpler Copernican heliocentric model. There was thus a great pent-up demand for a theory of motion thatwould render the path of a cannon ball more readily comprehensible. But itwas still rooted in the old tradition. A moving spinning Earth was not only contra-intuitive and theologically troubling--it also introduced a basic problemin physics: if the Earth moved, why didn't everything on it fly off? They arethus highly intuitive; they also meshed comfortably with Archimedianstatics: "heavy" things would tend to sink down; "light" things would tendto float upwards. The classical Ptolemaic astronomy was a much better theory thanAristotelian physics. Inastronomy, Galileo was not a great theoretical innovator--the heliocentrictheory was proposed by Copernicus two generations earlier, and put in moredeveloped form by Galileo's contemporary, Kepler. Theorthodox physics and astronomy of Aristotle and his successors, thoughhollowed by tradition and authority, as already--before Galileo's time--being severely strained on several theoretical and observational fronts.Attempts to "save the appearances"--to fix up the traditional physics andastronomy so that they could continue to adequately explain the observedworld--were becoming ever more elaborate, shaky, and inelegant. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1961.Koestler, Arthur. But the Copernicansystem was widely regarded as just that a model, useful for calculation,but not necessarily reflecting reality. Yet his ideas, in spite of the violentcontroversy they stirred and the official condemna-tion they brought him,came to be generally accepted by educated opinion within a few years afterhis trial. But these laws do not do very well in explaining the motion of athrown rock, an arrow, or a cannon ball. Had the hot-air balloon been known to the Greeks, itwould have been explained admirably by Aristotelian physics. A cannon ball could carry two orthree miles, still follow a nearly-flat path, and hit with tremendousmomentum. New York: Doubleday, 1957.Fermi, Laura, and Bernardini, Gilberto. New York: Random House, 1957.-----The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Moreover, piling circles on circles in their efforts to makethings come out right, the Ptolemaic astronomers had gradually destroyedthe elegance of the simpler forms of the system. NewYork: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957.Kuhn, Thomas S. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 197 . From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Aristotlerather clumsily suggested that air falling in behind a projectile pushed italong. 2nd ed. Although Galileo did most of his work as a physicist, it is for hisdiscoveries in astronomy tha t he is most famous, and it was also hiswork in astronomy that got him in trouble with the Church. By Galileo's day, however, this model of motion was not enough.Analysis of the motion of a new class of powerfully thrown objects--cannonballs--had become a matter of military interest, as much so as missiles orlasers are of military interest today. No theory ever fits observed reality perfectly: there are alwaysdiscrepancies, and the normal practice of sciences lies in working them out--"saving the appearances." But thediscrepancies in traditional astronomy were becoming harder and harder towork out. Only in the last few years has the Catholic Church officially"reversed" his conviction. AncientGreek science made great progress in statics; Archimedes' theory ofdisplacement and flotation is still a valid model for these phenomena. There are two sciences with which Galileo is associated: astronomy andphysics. All these things do indeed show atendency to fall, but they also persist in their forward motions.
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