Galileo was the first to observe the heavens with a
telescope, seeing that mottlings on the moon were ridges
and troughs on the lunar surface, observing the passage of
the inner planets around the Sun - instead of the Earth,
as
written by Copernicus - and noting the clockwork-like
motion of moons around Jupiter. WHAT GALILEO SAW was
supported by Kepler and other seventeenth-century
philosophers to spark the Scientific Revolution. What
people had believed for so long turned out to be
inaccurate, now that instruments of observation and
methods
of study were available. But saying so was denounced as
heresy.
This presentation of the times delves into the philosophy
and poetry of 1610 when Galileo's notes were first made
public, and the dogma controlling society. The established
religious were wealthy and powerful, and they feared
losing
power if they were proven to be incorrect. Poets from the
Ancient Greeks to Milton, who quoted the Greeks, wrote of
what they saw in the stars and of what the constellations
represented. Mingling truth with fancy was a regular
occurrence; Kepler arranged planetary orbits according to
five Platonic solids and heavenly music of the spheres.
Yet he did construct three correct laws regarding the
solar
system.
Galileo's father was a professional musician who studied
the theory of music, passing on lessons to his son in
Florence. The young man liked practical experiments to
test
his theories and took the chair of mathematics in Padua in
1592. Having heard about a spyglass that brought distant
objects closer in vision, he ground his own glass lenses
to
make his version, adding magnifying equipment of his own
design. Then he looked at the moon. His drawings are
reproduced in this book. Having observed what he took to
be fixed stars near Jupiter, over two months of sketching
he was astonished to find that they moved around the large
disc.
Lawrence Lipking has presented his interesting tale in
scholarly fashion, with many quotations from letters of
the
day and appendices, so this will not suit young readers or
those who want a brief guide to astronomy. WHAT GALILEO
SAW
is intended as a history and philosophy guide, asking us
why we believe what we believe and demonstrating that one
brave man who was condemned to imprisonment, changed our
minds.
The Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century has
often been called a decisive turning point in human
history. It represents, for good or ill, the birth of
modern science and modern ways of viewing the world. In
What Galileo Saw, Lawrence Lipking offers a new
perspective on how to understand what happened then,
arguing that artistic imagination and creativity as much
as rational thought played a critical role in creating new
visions of science and in shaping stories about eye-
opening discoveries in cosmology, natural history,
engineering, and the life sciences.
When Galileo saw the face of the Moon and the moons of
Jupiter, Lipking writes, he had to picture a cosmos that
could account for them. Kepler thought his geometry could
open a window into the mind of God. Francis Bacon's
natural history envisioned an order of things that would
replace the illusions of language with solid evidence and
transform notions of life and death. Descartes designed a
hypothetical "Book of Nature" to explain how everything in
the universe was constructed. Thomas Browne reconceived
the boundaries of truth and error. Robert Hooke, like
Leonardo, was both researcher and artist; his schemes
illuminate the microscopic and the macrocosmic. And when
Isaac Newton imagined nature as a coherent and
comprehensive mathematical system, he redefined the goals
of science and the meaning of genius.
What Galileo Saw bridges the divide between science and
art; it brings together Galileo and Milton, Bacon and
Shakespeare. Lipking enters the minds and the workshops
where the Scientific Revolution was fashioned, drawing on
art, literature, and the history of science to reimagine
how perceptions about the world and human life could
change so drastically, and change forever.
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