The celestial body discovered by Galileo was not made public. Galileo Galilei
About ten years passed after the heroic death of Bruno, and in 1610 the news of the amazing astronomical discoveries of the Italian scientist spread throughout the world. Galileo Galilee.
The name of Galileo was known to scientists even before that. famous for his discoveries in physics and mechanics, but he young years he was also interested in astronomy and was a staunch supporter of the teachings of Copernicus.
He believed that observation and experience are the surest means of understanding nature. Therefore, in astronomy, he attached particular importance to observations of the sky.
Copernicus, Bruno and their contemporaries could see in the sky only what is visible to the naked eye. He was the first scientist to begin observing the sky with the help of telescopes he built.
How tiny were these Galileo's pipes compared to today's powerful telescopes that magnify the image thousands of times! The first tube, with which he began his observations, magnified only three times. Later, he managed to build a tube with an increase of thirty-two times. But how exciting, literally shocking contemporaries were the discoveries made by Galileo with these homemade tools!
Each of these discoveries was a clear confirmation of the teachings of the genius Nicolaus Copernicus.. Observing the moon, I was convinced that it has mountains, plains and deep depressions. And this meant that the lunar surface in its structure is similar to the earth's.
Discovered four satellites of Jupiter orbiting this planet. This discovery irrefutably proved that not only the Earth can be the center of circulation of heavenly bodies.
watching sunspots, discovered that they move along the solar surface, and concluded that the Sun rotates around its axis. After that, it was easy to assume that rotation around the axis is characteristic of all celestial bodies, and not only the Earth.
But that was not all. Observing the starry sky, he was convinced that the number of stars is much greater than what the naked eye can see.
A huge white stripe in the sky - Milky Way- when viewed through a telescope, it was clearly divided into separate stars.
Thus, Bruno's bold idea was confirmed that there are an infinite number of stars - suns, which means that the expanses of the Universe are boundless and inexhaustible.
These discoveries of Galileo were greeted with enthusiastic surprise by contemporaries. Following Galileo, astronomers different countries began to observe the sky through astronomical tubes and fully confirmed Galileo's discoveries. Thus, for all advanced people it became clear that Copernicus and Bruno were right, that the opinion about some kind of exclusive role of the Earth in the universe does not withstand any criticism.
It is easy to understand what furious malice the "fathers of the church" must have provoked by Galileo's discoveries, which dealt an even more crushing blow to religious fictions than Bruno's inspired ideas of their time.
Advanced science, which confirmed the correctness of Copernicus, was terrible for the church. The malice of the Roman clergy fell on all the followers of Copernicus, and first of all on Galileo. By a special decree of the Pope, the book of Copernicus was seized, and the propaganda of his teachings was prohibited. But he not only did not obey this prohibition, but, on the contrary, continued to develop the teachings of Copernicus.
For many years he worked on with great difficulty"Dialogue about two major systems world, Ptolemy and Copernicus. " In this book, which with great difficulty he managed to publish in 1632, summarizing his discoveries, he convincingly showed the unconditional correctness of the teachings of Copernicus and the complete failure of the Ptolemaic system. By publishing this book, as it were, he declared to the whole world, that he is not afraid of the threats of the church, that he is determined to fight to the end for the triumph of science against superstition and prejudice.
In response to this book the Roman Church brought Galileo to the court of the Inquisition. The “holy fathers” of the Church saw in the massacre of the great scientist the only way to save their authority, which was being destroyed by the successes of science.
It is difficult to imagine anything more shameful than the judgment seat before which Galileo had to appear. He was forced to renounce the doctrine that the earth rotates.
Having condemned Galileo, the Inquisition did everything to poison and last years his life. He lived under house arrest, and the blindness that befell him did not give him the opportunity to continue to study science. In 1642 he died. A remarkable physicist, mechanic, successor of the Copernican cause, a courageous fighter for science against religious superstition and ignorance - such was this great scientist.
The name of this man aroused both admiration and hatred among his contemporaries. Nevertheless, he entered the history of world science not only as a follower of Giordano Bruno, but also as one of the greatest scientists of the Italian Renaissance.
He was born on February 15, 1564 in the city of Pisa into a noble but impoverished family. His father Vincenzo Galilei was a talented musician and composer, but art did not provide a livelihood, and the father of the future scientist earned money by trading in cloth
Until the age of eleven, Galileo lived in Pisa and studied at regular school and then moved to Florence with his family. Here he continued his education in a Benedictine monastery, where he studied grammar, arithmetic, rhetoric and other subjects.
At the age of seventeen, Galileo entered the University of Pisa and began to prepare for the profession of a doctor. At the same time, out of curiosity, he read works on mathematics and mechanics, in particular, Euclid and Archimedes. Later, Galileo always called the latter his teacher.
Due to a cramped financial situation, the young man had to leave the University of Pisa and return to Florence. At home, Galileo independently engaged in an in-depth study of mathematics and physics, which interested him very much. In 1586, he wrote his first scientific work, The Small Hydrostatic Balance, which brought him some fame and allowed him to meet several scientists. Under the patronage of one of them, the author of the Textbook of Mechanics, Guido Ubaldo del Monte, in 1589 Galilei received the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa. At twenty-five, he became a professor at the place where he studied, but did not complete his education.
Galileo taught students mathematics and astronomy, which he expounded, of course, according to Ptolemy. It was to this time that the experiments that he set, throwing various bodies from the inclined Leaning Tower of Pisa, to check whether they fall in accordance with the teachings of Aristotle - heavy faster than light ones. The answer turned out to be negative.
In On Motion (1590), Galileo criticized the Aristotelian doctrine of the fall of bodies. In it, among other things, he wrote: "If reason and experience coincide in something, it does not matter to me that this contradicts the opinion of the majority."
The establishment by Galileo of the isochronism of small oscillations of the pendulum belongs to the same period - the independence of the period of its oscillations from the amplitude. He came to this conclusion while watching the swinging of the chandeliers in the Pisa Cathedral and noting the time by the beating pulse on his hand... Guido del Monte highly valued Galileo as a mechanic and called him the "Archimedes of modern times".
Galileo's criticism of the physical ideas of Aristotle set against him numerous supporters of the ancient Greek scientist. The young professor became very uncomfortable in Pisa, and he accepted an invitation to take the chair of mathematics at the famous University of Padua.
The Padua period is the most fruitful and happy in the life of Galileo. Here he found a family, linking his fate with Marina Gamba, who bore him two daughters: Virginia (1600) and Livia (1601); later son Vincenzo was born (1606).
Since 1606, Galileo has been engaged in astronomy. In March 1610, his work entitled "The Starry Herald" was published. It is unlikely that so much sensational astronomical information was reported in one work, moreover, literally during several night observations in January - February of the same 1610.
Having learned about the invention of the telescope and having a good workshop of his own, Galileo makes several samples of telescopes, constantly improving their quality. As a result, the scientist managed to make a telescope with a magnification of 32 times. On the night of January 7, 1610, he points the telescope to the sky. What he saw there was a lunar landscape, mountains. Chains and peaks that cast shadows, valleys and seas - already led to the idea that the Moon is similar to the Earth - a fact that did not testify in favor of religious dogmas and Aristotle's teachings about the special position of the Earth among celestial bodies.
A huge white band in the sky - the Milky Way - when viewed through a telescope, was clearly divided into individual stars. Near Jupiter, the scientist noticed small stars (first three, then one more), which changed their position relative to the planet the very next night. Galileo, with his kinematic perception of natural phenomena, did not need to think long - before him were the satellites of Jupiter! - another argument against the exclusive position of the Earth. Galileo discovered the existence of four moons of Jupiter. Later, Galilei discovered the phenomenon of Saturn (although he did not understand what was the matter) and discovered the phases of Venus.
By observing how sunspots move across the solar surface, he found that the Sun also rotates around its axis. Based on observations, Galileo concluded that rotation around an axis is characteristic of all celestial bodies.
Observing the starry sky, he became convinced that the number of stars is much greater than can be seen with the naked eye. So Galileo confirmed Giordano Bruno's idea that the expanses of the Universe are endless and inexhaustible. After that, Galileo concluded that the heliocentric system of the world proposed by Copernicus is the only true one.
The telescopic discoveries of Galileo were met by many with distrust, even with hostility, but the supporters of the Copernican doctrine, and above all Kepler, who immediately published the Conversation with the Starry Messenger, reacted to them with delight, seeing in this confirmation of the correctness of their convictions.
The Star Messenger brought the scientist European fame. The Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II Medici offered Galileo to take the position of court mathematician. She promised a comfortable existence, free time for science, and the scientist accepted the offer. In addition, this allowed Galileo to return to his homeland, to Florence.
Now, having a powerful patron in the person of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Galileo more and more boldly begins to propagate the teachings of Copernicus. Clerical circles are alarmed. The authority of Galileo as a scientist is high, his opinion is listened to. So, many will decide, the doctrine of the motion of the Earth is not just one of the hypotheses of the structure of the world, which simplifies astronomical calculations.
The anxiety of the ministers of the church about the triumphant spread of the teachings of Copernicus is well explained by the letter of Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino to one of his correspondents: , then this is well said and does not involve any danger; and this is sufficient for mathematics; but when they begin to say that the sun actually stands at the center of the world and that it only rotates around itself, but does not move from east to west, and that the earth is in the third heaven and rotates around the sun with great speed, then this thing is very dangerous and not only because it irritates all philosophers and learned theologians, but also because it harms St. faith, since the falsity of Holy Scripture follows from it.
In Rome, denunciations against Galileo rained down. In 1616, at the request of the Congregation of the Holy Index (an ecclesiastical institution in charge of permits and prohibitions), eleven prominent theologians examined the teachings of Copernicus and came to the conclusion that it was false. On the basis of this conclusion, the heliocentric doctrine was declared heretical, and Copernicus' book On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres was included in the index of forbidden books. At the same time, all books that supported this theory were banned - those that existed and those that would be written in the future.
Galileo was summoned from Florence to Rome and, in a mild but categorical manner, demanded that he stop propagating heretical ideas about the structure of the world. The exhortation was carried out by the same Cardinal Bellarmino. Galileo was forced to comply. He did not forget how persistence in "heresy" ended for Giordano Bruno. Moreover, as a philosopher, he knew that "heresy" today becomes truth tomorrow.
In 1623, under the name of Urban VIII, Galileo's friend, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, became pope. The scientist hurries to Rome. He hopes to achieve the abolition of the prohibition of the "hypothesis" of Copernicus, but in vain. The pope explains to Galileo that now, when the Catholic world is torn apart by heresy, it is unacceptable to question the truth of the holy faith.
Galileo returns to Florence and continues to work on a new book, without losing hope of someday publishing his work. In 1628, he visits Rome again to reconnoiter the situation and find out the attitude of the highest hierarchs of the church towards the teachings of Copernicus. In Rome, he meets the same intolerance, but it does not stop him. Galileo finishes the book and in 1630 presents it to the Congregation.
Consideration of the work of Galileo in censorship lasted two years, then a ban followed. Then Galileo decided to publish his work in his native Florence. He managed to skillfully deceive the local censors, and in 1632 the book was published.
It was called "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican" and was written as a dramatic work. For censorship reasons, Galileo is forced to exercise caution: the book is written in the form of a dialogue between two supporters of Copernicus and one adherent of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and each of the interlocutors tries to understand the point of view of the other, assuming its justice. In the preface, Galileo is forced to declare that since the teachings of Copernicus are contrary to the holy faith and forbidden, he is not at all his supporter, and in the book the Copernican theory is only discussed, not affirmed. But neither the preface nor the form of presentation could hide the truth: the dogmas of Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy suffer such an obvious collapse here, and the theory of Copernicus triumphs so convincingly that, contrary to what was said in the preface, personal
Galileo's attitude to the teachings of Copernicus and his conviction in the validity of this teaching are beyond doubt.
True, it follows from the exposition that Galileo still believed in the uniform and circular motion of the planets around the Sun, that is, he was unable to evaluate and did not accept the Keplerian laws of planetary motion. He also disagreed with Kepler's assumptions about the causes of tides (the attraction of the moon!), instead developing his own theory of this phenomenon, which turned out to be incorrect.
The church authorities were furious. Sanctions followed immediately. The sale of Dialogue was banned, and Galileo was summoned to Rome for trial.
In vain did the seventy-year-old elder present the testimony of three doctors that he was ill. It was reported from Rome that if he did not come voluntarily, he would be brought by force, in shackles. And the elderly scientist set off, “I arrived in Rome,” Galileo writes in one of his letters, “on February 10, 1633, and relied on the mercy of the Inquisition and the holy father .. First, I was locked in the Trinity castle on the mountain, and the next day I visited the Commissioner of the Inquisition and took me away in his carriage.
On the way, he asked me various questions and expressed the wish that I stop the scandal caused in Italy by my discovery regarding the movement of the earth ... To all the mathematical evidence that I could oppose to him, he answered me with words from the Holy Scripture: “The earth was and shall be immovable forever and ever."
The investigation dragged on from April to June 1633, and on June 22, in the same church, almost at the same place where Giordano Bruno heard the death sentence, Galileo, on his knees, pronounced the text of the renunciation offered to him. Under the threat of torture, Galileo, refuting the accusation that he had violated the ban on propagating the teachings of Copernicus, was forced to admit that he “unconsciously” contributed to the confirmation of the correctness of this teaching, and publicly renounce it. In doing so, the humiliated Galileo understood that the process started by the Inquisition stop the triumphal procession of the new teaching, he himself needed time and opportunity to further development ideas laid down in the "Dialogue" so that they become the beginning of the classical system of the world, in which there would be no place for church dogmas. This process caused irreparable damage to the Church.
Galileo did not give up, although in the last years of his life he had to work in the most difficult conditions. At his villa in Arcetri, he was under house arrest (under the constant supervision of the Inquisition). Here is what he writes, for example, to his friend in Paris: “In Arcetri, I live under the strictest ban not to travel to the city and not to receive many friends at the same time, nor to communicate with those whom I receive except with extreme restraint ... And it seems to me that ... my current prison will be replaced only by that long and cramped one that awaits all of us.
For two years in prison, Galileo wrote "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs ...", where, in particular, he sets out the foundations of dynamics. When the book is finished, the entire Catholic world (Italy, France, Germany, Austria) refuses to print it.
In May 1636, the scientist negotiates the publication of his work in Holland, and then secretly forwards the manuscript there. "Conversations" is published in Leiden in July 1638, and the book reaches Arcetri almost a year later - in June 1639. By that time, the blinded Galileo (years of hard work, age and the fact that the scientist often looked at the Sun without good light filters affected) could only feel his offspring with his hands.
Only in November 1979, Pope John Paul II officially admitted that the Inquisition in 1633 made a mistake, forcing the scientist to renounce the theory of Copernicus by force.
This was the first and only case in the history of the Catholic Church of a public recognition of the injustice of condemning a heretic, committed 337 years after his death.
He receives a very good musical education. When he was ten years old, his family moved to his father's hometown of Florence, and then Galileo was sent to school in a Benedictine monastery. There, for four years, he studied the usual medieval disciplines with the scholastics.
Vincenzo Galilei chooses the honorable and lucrative profession of a doctor for his son. In 1581, the seventeen-year-old Galileo was enrolled as a student at the University of Piraeus at the Faculty of Medicine and Philosophy. But the state of medical science at the time filled him with discontent and repelled him from a medical career. At that time, he accidentally attended a lecture on mathematics by Ostilo Ricci, a friend of his family, and was amazed at the logic and beauty of Euclid's geometry.
He immediately studied the works of Euclid and Archimedes. His stay at the university becomes more and more unbearable. After spending four years there, Galileo left it shortly before completion and returned to Florence. There he continued his studies under Ritchie, who appreciated the extraordinary abilities of the young Galileo. In addition to purely mathematical questions, he got acquainted with technical achievements. He studies ancient philosophers and modern writers and a short time acquires the knowledge of a serious scientist.
Discoveries of Galileo Galilei
Law of pendulum motion
Studying in Pisa with his observability and sharp mind, he discovers the law of motion of the pendulum (the period depends only on the length, not on the amplitude or weight of the pendulum). Later, he proposes the design of a device with a pendulum for measuring at regular intervals. In 1586, Galileo completed his first solo study of hydrostatic balance and built a new type of hydrostatic balance. The next year he wrote a purely geometric work, "Theorems of a rigid body".
Galileo's first treatises were not published, but are rapidly spreading and coming to the fore. In 1588, commissioned by the Florentine Academy, he delivered two lectures on the shape, position, and extent of Dante's Hell. They are filled with the theorems of mechanics and numerous geometric proofs, they are used as a pretext for the development of geography and ideas for the whole world. In 1589 Grand Duke Tuscany appointed Galileo a professor at the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Pisa.
In Pisa, the young scientist again encounters educational medieval science. Galileo must learn the geocentric system of Ptolemy, which, along with the philosophy of Aristotle, adapted to the needs of the church, is recognized. He does not communicate with his colleagues, argues with them, and at first doubts many of Aristotle's statements about physics.
The first scientific experiment in physics
According to him, the movement of the Earth's bodies is divided into "natural", when they tend to their "natural places" (for example, downward movement for heavy bodies and "ascending" movement) and "violent". The movement stops when the cause disappears. "Perfect celestial bodies" is a perpetual movement in perfect circles around the center of the Earth (and the center of the world). To disprove Aristotle's assertion that bodies fall at a speed proportional to their weights, Galileo makes his famous experiments with bodies falling from a leaning tower at Pisa.
This is actually the first scientific experiment in physics and with it Galileo introduces new method acquiring knowledge from experience and observation. The result of these studies is the treatise "The Fall of Bodies", which sets out the main conclusion about the independence of speed from the weight of a falling body. It is written in a new style for scientific literature- in the form of a dialogue, which reveals the main conclusion about the speed, which does not depend on the weight of the falling body.
Related article: Catherine Medici. Queen's story
The lack of a scientific base and low pay force Galie to leave the University of Pisa before the expiration of the three-year contract. At that time, after the death of his father, he must take over the family. Galileo is invited to take up the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua. The University of Padua was one of the oldest in Europe and was known for its spirit of freedom of thought and independence from the clergy. Here Galileo worked and quickly earned a name as an excellent physicist and a very good engineer. In 1593, his first two works were completed, as well as "Mechanics", in which he outlined his views on the theory of simple machines, invented proportions with which it is easy to perform various geometric operations - drawing enlargement, etc. His patents for hydraulic equipment also preserved.
In the lectures of Galileo at the university, official views are voiced, he teaches geometry, Ptolemy's geocentric system and Aristotle's physics.
Acquaintance with the teachings of Copernicus
At the same time, at home, among friends and students, he talks about various problems and sets out his own new views. This duality of life, Galileo is forced to lead for a long time, until he becomes convincing in his ideas in the public space. It is believed that even in Pisa, Galileo became acquainted with the teachings of Copernicus. In Padua, he is already a convinced supporter of the heliocentric system and has as his main goal collection of evidence in this favor. In a letter to Kepler in 1597, he wrote:
“Many years ago I turned to the ideas of Copernicus and with my theory I was able to fully explain a number of phenomena that, in general, could not be explained by opposing theories. I have come up with many arguments that refute opposing ideas.”
Galilean tube
At the end of 1608, news reaches Galileo that an optical device has been discovered in the Netherlands that allows you to see distant objects. Galileo, after working hard and processing hundreds of pieces of optical glass, built his first telescope with a magnification of three times. This is a system of lenses (eyepieces), now called the Galilean tube. His third 32x telescope looks at the sky.
Only after a few months of observation did he publish his amazing findings in a book:
The moon is not perfectly spherical and smooth, its surface is covered with hills and depressions, similar to the Earth.
The Milky Way is a collection of numerous stars.
The planet Jupiter has four satellites that circle around it like the Moon around the Earth.
Despite the fact that the book is allowed to be printed, this book actually contains a serious blow to Christian dogmas - the principle of the difference between "imperfect" earthly bodies and "perfect, eternal and unchanging" celestial bodies has been destroyed.
The motion of Jupiter's moons has been used as an argument in favor of the Copernican system. The first bold astronomical achievements of Galileo do not attract the attention of the Inquisition, on the contrary, they brought him great popularity and influence as a renowned scientist throughout Italy, including among the clergy.
In 1610, Galileo was appointed "the first mathematician and philosopher" in the court of the ruler of Tuscany and his former student, Cosimo II de' Medici. He leaves the University of Padua after 18 years of residence there and moves to Florence, where he is released from any academic work and can only do their own research.
The discovery of the phases of Venus, the observation of the ring of Saturn and sunspots were soon added to the arguments in favor of the Copernican system. He visited Rome, where he was greeted by the cardinals and the pope. Galileo hopes that the logical perfection and experimental justification of the new science will force the church to recognize this. In 1612, his important work Reflection on Floating Bodies was published. In it, he provides new evidence for the law of Archimedes and opposes many aspects of scholastic philosophy, asserting the right of reason not to obey the authorities. In 1613 he wrote a treatise on sunspots in Italian with great literary talent. At that time, he also almost discovered the rotation of the Sun.
Related article: Mary Stuart Queen of Scots and Queen Consort of France
Prohibition of the teachings of Copernicus
As Galileo and his disciples were already under attack, he feels compelled to speak and write his famous letter to Castelli. He proclaimed the independence of science from theology and the uselessness of Scripture in the research of scientists: "... in mathematical disputes, it seems to me, the Bible belongs to the last place." But the spread of opinion heliocentric system seriously worried theologians and in March 1616, with the decree of the Holy Congregation, the teachings of Copernicus are prohibited.
Many years of silence begin for the entire active milieu of Copernican supporters. But the system becomes apparent only when, in 1610-1616. astronomical discoveries were the main weapon against the geocentric system. Now Galileo strikes at the very foundations of the old, unscientific worldview, influencing the deepest physical roots of the world. The struggle resumed with the appearance in 1624 of two works, including "Letter to Ingoli". In this work, Galileo expounds the principle of relativity. The traditional argument against the motion of the Earth is discussed, namely that if the Earth were rotating, a stone thrown from a tower would lag behind the surface of the Earth.
Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemy and Copernicus
In subsequent years, Galileo was immersed in work on the main book, which reflected the results of his 30 years of research and reflection, the experience gained in applied mechanics and astronomy and his general philosophical views to the world. In 1630, an extensive manuscript entitled "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemy and Copernicus" was completed.
The exposition of the book was built in the form of a conversation between three people: Salviatti, a staunch supporter of Copernicus and the new philosophy; Sagredo, who is a wise man and agrees with all of Salviatti's arguments, but is initially neutral; and Simplicchio, defender of the traditional Aristotelian concept. The names Salviatti and Sagredo were two friends of Galileo, and Simplicio was in honor of the famous commentator on Aristotle of the 6th century Simplicius, and in Italian it means "simple".
Dialogue gives insight into almost all scientific discoveries Galileo, as well as his understanding of nature and the possibilities of studying it. He stands on materialistic positions; believes that the world exists independently of human consciousness and introduces new methods of research - observation, experience, thought experiment and quantitative mathematical analysis instead of offensive reasoning and references to authority and dogma.
Galileo considers the world to be unified and changeable, without dividing it into "eternal" and "variable" substances; denies absolute motion around a fixed center of the world: “Can I reasonably ask you if there is any center of the world at all, because neither you nor anyone else has proven that the world is finite and has a definite form, not infinite and unlimited. Galileo made great efforts to get his work published. He makes a number of compromises and writes to readers that he does not adhere to the teachings of Copernicus and provides a hypothetical possibility that does not correspond to reality and must be rejected.
The prohibition of "Dialogue"
For two years he collected permission from the highest spiritual authorities and the censors of the Inquisition, and at the beginning of 1632 the book went out of print. But very soon there is a strong reaction from theologians. The Roman pontiff was convinced that he was depicted under the image of Simplicio. A special commission of theologians was appointed, which declared the work heretical, and the seventy-year-old Galileo was summoned to trial in Rome. The process initiated by the Inquisition against him lasts a year and a half and ends with a verdict according to which the "Dialogue" is prohibited.
Renunciation of one's views
On June 22, 1633, in front of all the cardinals and members of the Inquisition, Galileo reads the text of the renunciation of his views. This event allegedly speaks of the complete suppression of his resistance, but in fact this is the next big compromise that he must make in order to continue his scientific work. The legendary phrase: "Eppur si muove" (and yet it spins) is justified by his life and work after the process. It is said that he uttered this phrase after the abdication, however, in fact, this fact is an artistic fiction of the 18th century.
Between Contemporaries was based mainly on the great discoveries he made with the telescope. Indeed, they gave a lot of very important new knowledge about the heavenly bodies, and almost every one of them served as a new proof of the truth of the system. Copernicus. The spots on the illuminated part of the moon, the broken outlines on the edge of the illuminated part of it, viewed through a telescope, turned out to be irregularities on its surface, and Galileo had already compared them with the mountains of our globe. Observing the sun, Galileo discovered spots on it, from the movement of which it became obvious that the sun rotates about its axis. Observing Venus, Galileo saw that it had the same phases as the moon. (Copernicus has already said that it must necessarily be so). Galileo discovered the satellites of Jupiter, and made a lot of observations on them in order to determine the law of their rotation around their planet; he realized that the time differences shown by clocks at different longitudes when observing the eclipse of one or another satellite of Jupiter can serve to determine the difference in these longitudes, and he tried to compile such tables of the movements of the satellites of Jupiter that would have the accuracy necessary for this determination. The Dutch government understood the importance of this allowance for navigation and asked Galileo not to quit work until it was completed; but death ended it before the end. Galileo discovered the ring of Saturn. (With the weakness of the telescopes through which he made his observations, this ring seemed to be part of the planet itself; that it was separated from it by a distance, he saw only Huygens). Galileo's discoveries also provided important new knowledge about the stars. He saw that the Milky Way consisted of stars, the faint radiance of which merges for the simple eye into a bright band; in the same way, many of the hazy patches turned out to be composed of stars. Portrait of Galileo Galilei. Artist D. Tintoretto, ca. 1605-1607 But no matter how brilliant the astronomical discoveries of Galileo, his discoveries in mechanics are no less important; only his works elevated it to the degree of science. He dispelled the former erroneous notions about the law of motion, found true ideas about it. Aristotle's false opinions about the essence of motion, while remaining dominant, greatly interfered with the disclosure of the laws of motion. The concepts of Archimedes were the only grounds for inferring truth. Guido Ubaldi and the Dutch mathematician Stevin already took the positions of Archimedes as the basis of their works and expanded some of them. But confused, completely erroneous concepts of movement continued to dominate. Before Galileo, there were almost no attempts at all to consider the facts of motion from a mathematical point of view. Galileo laid a solid foundation for mechanics with his research on the motion of falling and ejected bodies, on the swing of a pendulum, and on the fall of a body along an inclined plane. The laws of motion found by him and based on the concept of acceleration free fall, became the initial truths for all subsequent studies of the mechanical order of natural phenomena. Without Galileo's discoveries in mechanics, Newton's discoveries would hardly have been possible. Galileo's students continued his work. One of them, Casteli (born in 1577, died in 1644), successfully applied to the movement of water the concepts developed by Galileo about the general laws of motion and thanks to this he successfully fulfilled the order given to him by Urban VIII to regulate the course of the rivers of the papal state. Another disciple of Galileo, Toricelli(born in 1618, died in 1647) became famous for the discovery that air has gravity; this eliminated the erroneous opinion that nature does not tolerate emptiness (horror vacui). February 15 marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of the great Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642), one of the founders of modern science. We have prepared a story about 14 interesting facts about the life and scientific activity of the founder of experimental physics, from whom modern physics began in the 17th century.
Domenico Tintoretto. Galileo Galilei. 1605-1607 The reason for the inquisitorial process of 1633 was Galileo's just published book "Dialogue Concerning the Two Greatest Systems of the World, Ptolemaic and Copernican", where he proved the truth of heliocentrism and argued with peripatetic (i.e., Aristotelian physics), as well as with the Ptolemaic system, according to which at the center of the world is the motionless Earth. This idea of the structure of the world was held then by the Catholic Church. Giuseppe Bertini. Galileo shows the telescope to the Doge of Venice. 1858 The Inquisition blamed Galileo for exceeding the powers of reason and belittling the authority of Holy Scripture. Galileo was a rationalist who believed in the power of the mind in the matter of knowing nature: the mind, according to Galileo, knows the truth "with the certainty that nature itself has." The Catholic Church, on the other hand, believed that any scientific theory is only hypothetical in nature and cannot achieve perfect knowledge of the secrets of the universe. Galileo was sure of the opposite: “... the human mind knows some truths so perfectly and with the same absolute certainty that nature itself has: such are pure mathematical sciences, geometry and arithmetic; although the Divine mind knows infinitely more truths in them ... but in those few that the human mind has comprehended, I think that its knowledge is equal in objective certainty to the Divine, for it comes to an understanding of their necessity, and the highest degree of certainty does not exist. According to Galileo, in the event of a conflict in the knowledge of nature with any other authority, including even with Holy Scripture, reason should not yield: “It seems to me that when discussing natural problems, we should proceed not from the authority of the texts of Holy Scripture, but from sensory experiences and necessary evidence... I believe that everything relating to the actions of nature, which is available to our eyes or can be understood by logical evidence, should not raise doubts, much less be condemned on the basis of the texts of Holy Scripture, perhaps even misunderstood. God is no less revealed to us in the phenomena of nature than in the sayings of Holy Scripture ... It would be dangerous to attribute Holy Scripture any judgment, at least once challenged by experience. Giovanni Lorenzo Bertini. Pope Urban VIII. OK. 1625 Galileo himself considered himself a faithful son of the Catholic Church and did not intend to enter into conflict with it. Initially, Pope Urban VIII patronized Galileo and his scientific research for a long time. They were on good terms even when the pope was Cardinal Matteo Barberini. But by the time of the inquisitorial trial of the great physicist, Urban VIII had suffered a series of serious setbacks, he was accused of political alliance with the Protestant King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden against Catholic Spain and Austria. Also, the authority of the Catholic Church was seriously undermined by the then ongoing Reformation. Against this background, when Urban VIII was informed about Galileo's "Dialogue", the annoyed pope even believed that one of the participants in the dialogue, the Aristotelian Simplicio, whose arguments are shattered to smithereens during the conversation, is a caricature of himself. The anger of the pope was combined with a calculation: the inquisition process was to demonstrate the unbroken spirit of the Catholic Church and the counter-reformation. Joseph Nicolas Robert Fleury. Galileo before the court of the Inquisition. 1847 Galileo was threatened with torture during the trial of 1633 if he did not recant his "heretical" opinion that the earth moved around the sun. Some historians still think that torture on a "moderate scale" could have been applied to Galileo, but most are inclined to believe that it was not. He was threatened with verbal torture (territio verbalis), without intimidation through a real demonstration of torture instruments (territio realis). However, Galileo resolutely renounced the teachings of Copernicus, and there was no need to torture him. The final sentence formula left Galileo "under strong suspicion of heresy" and ordered him to purify himself by recantation. His "Dialogue on the Two Greatest Systems of the World" was included in the "Index of Forbidden Books" by the Catholic Church, and Galileo himself was also sentenced to a prison term to be established by the Pope. In this regard, let us clarify, as in the case of Copernicus, that the Inquisition burned at the stake not Galileo, but Giordano Bruno. The fact that Galileo allegedly said the famous phrase "But still it spins!" (Eppur si muove!) immediately after his abdication is just a beautiful legend created by the Italian poet, publicist and literary critic Giuseppe Baretti in the middle of the 18th century. It is not supported by any documentary data. Galileo was the first to use a telescope (spotting scope) to observe the sky. The discoveries made by him in 1609-1610 were a real milestone in astronomy. Using a telescope, Galileo was the first to discover that Milky Way is a giant cluster of stars and that Jupiter has satellites. These were the four largest satellites of Jupiter - Europa, Ganymede, Io and Callisto, nicknamed Galilean in honor of their discoverer (today astronomers have 67 satellites near the largest planet in the solar system). Joseph Nicolas Robert Fleury. Galileo before the court of the Inquisition. There have been very few events in the history of science that are similar to this series of discoveries in terms of the public outcry it caused and the impact on people's thinking. Before Galileo, Aristotelianism occupied the dominant position in European science and culture. According to Aristotelian physics, there was a radical difference between the supralunar and sublunar worlds. If “under the moon”, in the earthly world, everything is perishable and subject to change and death, then in the supralunar world, in the sky, according to Aristotle, ideal laws reign, and all celestial bodies are eternal and perfect, are ideally smooth. The discoveries of Galileo, in particular, the contemplation of the uneven, hilly surface of the Moon was one of the decisive steps towards understanding that the entire cosmos or the world as a whole is arranged in the same way, that the same patterns operate everywhere in it. By the way, it is interesting to note the significant difference between the impression that the contemplation of the moon made on Galileo's contemporaries and that it makes on us today. Our contemporary, who looked at the Moon through a telescope, is struck by how different the Moon is from the Earth: he, first of all, pays attention to a somewhat dull, gray and waterless surface. In the days of Galileo, on the other hand, people were surprised at how much the Moon turned out to be similar to the Earth. For us, the idea of a physical relationship between the Earth and the Moon has already become trivial. For Galileo, the ridges and craters on the Moon were a clear refutation of the Aristotelian opposition of celestial bodies and the Earth. The main idea of Galileo's scientific work was the idea of the world as an ordered system of bodies that move one relative to the other in a homogeneous space, devoid of privileged directions or points. For example, what is considered top or bottom, according to Galileo, depends on the chosen reference system. In Aristotelian physics, the world was a limited space, where the top or bottom was clearly distinguished. All bodies either rested in their "natural places" or moved towards them. The homogeneity of space, the relativity of movement - these were the principles of the new scientific picture of the world, laid down by Galileo. In addition, for Aristotle, rest was more important and better than movement: his body, which was not affected by forces, is always at rest. Galileo introduced the principle of inertia (if no forces act on the body, it is at rest or moves uniformly), which equalized rest and motion. Now moving at a constant speed does not require a reason. This was the greatest revolution in the doctrine of motion, which marked the beginning of a new science. Galileo considered the question of the finiteness or infinity of the world to be insoluble. The most important innovation of Galileo in science was his desire to mathematize physics, to describe the world around him not in the language of qualities, as in Aristotelian physics, but in the language of mathematics. Galileo wrote: “I will never demand from external bodies anything other than size, figure, quantity, and more or less rapid movements in order to explain the emergence of sensations of taste, smell and sound. I think that if we eliminated ears, tongues, noses, then only figures, numbers, movements would remain, but not smells, tastes and sounds, which, in my opinion, outside a living being, are nothing but empty opinion. . And when the famous physicist, laureate Nobel Prize in Physics 1979 Steven Weinberg says that the essence modern physics- quantitative understanding of phenomena, it is important to know that Galileo Galilei laid the foundation for this in his experiments to measure the movement of stones falling from the top of the tower, the rolling of balls along an inclined plane, etc. Galileo is considered the founder of experimental natural science, when science turns from purely logical, speculative theorizing to direct observation of nature and experimentation with it. Meanwhile, the reader of Galileo's writings is struck by how often he resorts to thought experiments. They have the ability to prove their truth even before their actual implementation. Galileo seemed to be convinced of their truth even before any experience. The case of Galileo caused great damage to the authority of the Catholic Church. Her mistake was that the idea of scientific theories, created, by the way, pagans. After all, the physics of Aristotle, like the system of Ptolemy, is a legacy of antiquity. But the doctrine of the motion of the earth cannot be a theological question. Dogmas must concern the area of faith where science has no access. For example, in the Creed there is not a single definition that could be confirmed or refuted scientifically. In 1758, Pope Benedict XIV ordered that works advocating heliocentrism be struck out of the Index of Forbidden Books. This work was carried out slowly and was completed only in 1835. Galileo was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa (a city not far from Florence) in the family of a well-born but impoverished nobleman Vincenzo Galil, a music theorist and lute player. The family of Galileo was from Florence, belonged to its richest bourgeois families who ruled the city. One of Galileo's great-great-grandfathers was even a "standard-bearer of justice" (gofaloniere di giustizia), the head of the Florentine Republic, as well as a famous doctor and scientist. In 1610, he moved to Florence to the Tuscan Duke Cosimo de' Medici II, who gave him a good salary as his adviser at court. This helps Galileo to pay off the huge debts he has accumulated due to the marriage of his two sisters. Galileo spent the last nine years of his life under the supervision of the Inquisition, which limited him in scientific contacts and movements. He settled in Arcetri near the monastery where his daughters were, and he was forbidden to visit other cities. Nevertheless, Galileo was still engaged scientific research. When he died on January 8, 1642, in the arms of his disciples Viviani and Torricelli, Pope Urban VIII forbade solemn funerals, and Cardinal Francesco Barberini (nephew of the pope) sent the following message to the papal nuncio in Florence: “His Holiness, in agreement with the Eminences I have indicated, decided that You, with your usual skill, will be able to convey to the attention of the duke that it is not good to build a mausoleum for the corpse of one who was punished by the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition and died while serving this punishment, for this could embarrass good people and damage their confidence in the piety of his highness. But, if nevertheless it is not possible to turn the Grand Duke away from such a plan, you will need to warn that in the epitaph or inscription that will be on the monument, there should not be such expressions that could affect the reputation of this tribunal. And you will have to give the same warning to the one who will read the funeral speech ... " Many years later, in 1737, Galileo was nevertheless buried in the tomb of Santa Croce next to Michelangelo, as they intended to do at first.1. The Inquisition tried Galileo for a book about the Sun and the Earth
The main claim of the Inquisition to Galileo was his confidence in the objective truth of the heliocentric system of the world. Moreover, the Catholic Church for a long time had nothing against Copernicanism, provided that it would be interpreted simply as a hypothesis or a mathematical assumption, which simply makes it possible to better describe the world(“save phenomena”), without pretending to be objective truth and certainty. Only in 1616, more than 70 years after its publication, Copernicus' book De revolutionibus (On Conversions) was included in the Index of Forbidden Books.2. Galileo was accused of diminishing the authority of the Bible
3. Galileo considered himself a good Catholic
4. Galileo was not tortured, but he was threatened with torture
In general, in the story of Galileo, the Catholic Church, in a certain sense, behaved quite moderately. During the process in Rome, Galileo lived with the Florentine ambassador at the Villa Medici. Living conditions there were far from prison. After his abdication, Galileo immediately returned (the pope did not keep Galileo in prison) to the villa of the Duke of Tuscany in Rome, and then moved to his friend, the archbishop of Siena, his friend Ascanio Piccolomini and settled in his palace.5. The Inquisition did not burn Galileo, but Giordano Bruno
This Italian Dominican monk, philosopher and poet, was burned in 1600 in Rome not just for his belief in the truth of the Copernican system of the world. Bruno was a conscious and stubborn heretic (which, perhaps, does not justify, but at least somehow explains the actions of the Inquisition). Here is the text of the denunciation that Bruno was sent to the Inquisition by his student, the young Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo: “I, Giovanni Mocenigo, denounce out of duty of conscience and by order of the confessor, which I heard many times from Giordano Bruno when I talked with him in my house, that the world is eternal and there are infinite worlds ... that Christ performed imaginary miracles and was a magician, that Christ did not die of his own free will and, as far as he could, tried to avoid death; that there is no wages for sins; that the souls created by nature pass from one living being to another. He talked about his intention to become the founder of a new sect called "new philosophy". He said that the Virgin Mary could not give birth; monks dishonor the world; that they are all donkeys; that we have no evidence that our faith has merit before God.”
For six years, Giordano Bruno was imprisoned in Rome, refusing to acknowledge his beliefs as a mistake. When Bruno was sentenced to subject him to “the most merciful punishment and without the shedding of blood” (burning alive), the philosopher and heretic answered the judges: “Burning does not mean refuting!”6. Galileo did not utter the famous phrase “And yet it spins!”
In fact, Galileo ended his abdication in the Roman church Sancta Maria sopra Minerva (“Holy Mary triumphs over Athena Minerva”) on June 22, 1633, with the following words: “I composed and printed a book in which I treat this condemned teaching and cite it strong arguments are in favor, without giving their final refutation, as a result of which I am recognized by this holy court as highly suspected of heresy, as if I hold and believe that the Sun is the center of the world and is motionless, while the Earth is not the center and moves. And therefore, wishing to banish from the thoughts of your Eminences, as well as from the mind of every devoted Christian, this strong suspicion, legitimately aroused against me, - from pure heart and with unfeigned faith I renounce, curse, declare hateful the aforementioned errors and heresies, and in general all and sundry errors, heresies and sectarian teachings that are contrary to the aforementioned holy church.7. Galileo invented the telescope
Galileo saw through the telescope the uneven, hilly surface of the Moon, mountains and craters on its surface. He also observes sunspots, the phases of Venus and sees Saturn as three-faced (what he at first also mistook for the satellites of Saturn turned out to be the edges of his famous rings).8. Galileo proved Aristotle wrong in his views on the Earth and the Moon and changed man's ideas about the Earth and the cosmos.
10. Galileo changed our ideas about space and the movement of bodies
11. Galileo first connected physics with mathematics
12 Galileo's Physics Is Based On Ideas That Can't Be Tested
This suggests that classical physics, the foundations of which were laid by Galileo, is not an unconditional and therefore the only true observation of nature "as it is." It itself rests on certain fundamental speculative assumptions. After all, the foundations of Galileo's physics are built from fundamentally unobservable elements: infinite inertial motion, motion material point in the void, the movement of the Earth, etc. It was precisely Aristotelian physics that was closer to immediate evidence: the difference between top and bottom in space, the movement of the Sun around the Earth, the rest of the body if external forces do not act on it, etc.13. Galileo's trial proved that the subjects of faith and science should not be mixed
14. The Church admitted its mistakes in the case of Galileo
Voices about the need to rehabilitate Galileo sounded at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Later, the rehabilitation of Galileo was taken up by Pope John Paul II. In 1989, Cardinal Poupart said about the condemnation of Galileo: “In condemning Galileo, the Holy Office acted sincerely, fearing that the recognition of the Copernican revolution boded a threat to the Catholic tradition. But, that was a mistake, and it is necessary to honestly admit it. Today we know that Galileo was right in defending the theory of Copernicus, although the discussion about his arguments continues to this day.Biography of Galileo
In Pisa, Galileo Galilei graduated from the university, his first scientific research took place here, and here, at the age of 25, he took the chair of mathematics.
When Galileo lived in Padua (1592-1610), he entered into an unmarried marriage with the Venetian Marina Gamba and became the father of a son and two daughters. Later, in 1619, Galileo officially legitimized his son. Both daughters ended their lives in the monastery where they went, because, due to their illegitimate birth, they could not count on a successful marriage and a good dowry.