Day 23: Happy birthday, Galileo!
Original portrait by Justus Sustermans painted in 1636.
What a week for noble births! Last Thursday marked the 200th birthdays for both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, and today marks the 445th year since the Feb. 15, 1564 birth of Galileo Galilei, the inventor of the telescope, whose controversial astronomy views landed him on house arrest for the final 19 years of his life. Galileo, a devout Catholic, ran into trouble with the Catholic Church because he publicly supported a sun-centered view of the solar system initially proposed by Copernicus. At the time, the Church adhered to an Earth-centered view that had been fronted by Ptolemy and others, and considered Galileo a heretic for countering it. Galileo’s first telescope was 9 power and he accomplished a power of 30 in his lifetime. These days, amateur telescopes boast powers into the hundreds, and the giant professional telescopes, with their 30-foot mirrors that weigh tens of tons, are no longer discussed in terms of power — but how well they detect objects billions of light-years from Earth. Today’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast has a great segment on Galileo here.
Incidentally, 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, a global celebration of astronomy honoring the 400th year since the invention of the telescope. Loads of educational and outreach programs are geared toward space enthusiasts of all varieties. Check it out!
One Response to “Day 23: Happy birthday, Galileo!”
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Antonio Manetti on February 18th, 2009 8:43 pm
The interesting speculation is to ask why other scientists didn’t persue Lipperhey’s idea. One explanation is that Gallileo had the magic combination of lens-building crafstmanship and scientific insight. At any rate, that’s why in science, publishing is everything.
By the way, there’s an unbiased (and expensive) book by Annibale Fantoli on the Galileo trial with the rather awkward title of “Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church”. The thesis of the book is that Galileo remained a faithful Catholic before and after his trial and sentencing.
The boook also makes the essential point that while Galileo’s proofs of Heliocentrism were flawed, the Church erred in asserting that such proofs would never be forthcoming. Thus it’s accusation of outright heresy was a mistake.