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cheryl6of8 's review for:
A fascinating and compelling read that manages to humanize one of the giants of the ages, Galileo Galilei. I learned so much from this book, so many things that I didn't know had once been believed to be true, and I have finally been able to reconcile my knowledge of history with the actuality of events.
It is only from reading the dates at the bottom of S. Maria Celeste's letters to her father again and again that I finally realized that Galileo's trial for heresy took place some 13 years after the Puritans landex at Plymouth Rock. Somehow it always seemed a more distant event than that. I also didn't realize that Sir Isaac Newton did not come on the scene until after Galileo's death, such that the principles of the law of gravity were unknown to Galileo. That explains why he felt that the motion of the tides was evidence of the earth's rotation. Still, many of Galileo's studies encompassed in his final book (written after the trial) deal with physics and the laws of motion and truly reflect the birth of experimental science.so often Galileo is reduced in popular conception to the principle of heliocentrism, which minimizes his accomplishments as well as those of Copernicus, whose theories Galileo was merely defending.
I also learned why so many religious scholars were against the more logical and reasonable heliocentric view, which did not require stars and planets to jump around the sky like sugar-crazed toddlers. They felt that to confine God's processes and designs to logic, that would limit the power and majesty of an Omnipotent God.
Finally, I learned that it was not the Roman Catholic Church which condemned Galileo for his scientific views. It was the Officd of the Holy Inquisition (which is a separate entity from the Church in much the same way that the Post Office is separate from the U.S. Government) that condemned him for failure to obey a specific command given to him as strictly as they wanted.
A great read; would gladly recommend it to others.
It is only from reading the dates at the bottom of S. Maria Celeste's letters to her father again and again that I finally realized that Galileo's trial for heresy took place some 13 years after the Puritans landex at Plymouth Rock. Somehow it always seemed a more distant event than that. I also didn't realize that Sir Isaac Newton did not come on the scene until after Galileo's death, such that the principles of the law of gravity were unknown to Galileo. That explains why he felt that the motion of the tides was evidence of the earth's rotation. Still, many of Galileo's studies encompassed in his final book (written after the trial) deal with physics and the laws of motion and truly reflect the birth of experimental science.so often Galileo is reduced in popular conception to the principle of heliocentrism, which minimizes his accomplishments as well as those of Copernicus, whose theories Galileo was merely defending.
I also learned why so many religious scholars were against the more logical and reasonable heliocentric view, which did not require stars and planets to jump around the sky like sugar-crazed toddlers. They felt that to confine God's processes and designs to logic, that would limit the power and majesty of an Omnipotent God.
Finally, I learned that it was not the Roman Catholic Church which condemned Galileo for his scientific views. It was the Officd of the Holy Inquisition (which is a separate entity from the Church in much the same way that the Post Office is separate from the U.S. Government) that condemned him for failure to obey a specific command given to him as strictly as they wanted.
A great read; would gladly recommend it to others.