Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). The fame of this scientist was great during his lifetime, and, growing with each century, by our time has made him one of the most revered scientists.
Galileo Galilei was born into an aristocratic Italian family; his grandfather was the head of the Florentine Republic. After studying at the monastery, he entered the University of Pisa. Lack of money forced the young man to return home (1585). But his abilities were so great, and his inventions were so witty, that already in 1589 Galileo was a professor of mathematics. In well-known universities, he teaches, explores the processes of mechanics. The young professor is gaining immense popularity with students and authority with the authorities. While in Padua, Galileo develops new technologies for the industry of the Republic of Venice.
The scientist's studies in astronomy led to the first conflicts with the church. Galileo Galilei modified a newly invented telescope to view the sky. They discovered the mountains on the moon, it was established that the Milky Way is a cluster of individual stars, the satellites of Jupiter were discovered. To the suspicions of the Inquisition was added the distrust of colleagues who claimed that what was seen through the telescope was an optical illusion.
Nevertheless, the glory of Galileo becomes pan-European. He becomes an adviser to the Duke of Tuscany. The position allows you to engage in science and discoveries follow one after another. The study of the phases of Venus, spots on the Sun, research in the field of mechanics and the main discovery - heliocentrism.
The claim that the Earth moves around the Sun has seriously alarmed the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo's theory was also opposed by many scientists. However, the Jesuits became the main enemy. Galileo Galilei expressed his views in printed works, which often contained caustic attacks on the powerful order.
The ban on heliocentrism by the church did not stop the scientist. He published a book where he presented his theory in the form of a polemic. However, in one of the stupid characters of the published book "Dialogues ...", the head of the Catholic Church recognized himself.
The Pope was furious and the intrigues of the Jesuits fell on fertile ground. Galileo was arrested and held in prison for 18 days. The scientist was threatened with the death penalty at the stake, and he preferred to renounce his views. The phrase “And yet it spins” was attributed to him by journalists when compiling a biography.
The rest of the days the great Italian spent under a kind of house arrest, where the jailers were his old enemies, the Jesuits. A few years after the death of the scientist, his only grandson took the monastic vows and destroyed the manuscripts of Galileo that he kept.
The Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei is known as one of the greatest scientific minds. During his lifetime, however, he was persecuted by the Catholic Church for his belief that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe. Find out more about the iconic scientist, including whether he invented the telescope, what punishment he received after being tried by the Roman Inquisition, and how his middle finger ended up in a museum.
He was a college dropout
Galileo, whose father was a lute player and musical theorist, was born in Pisa, Italy. Despite the fact that his father was from a noble family, he was not rich. At the age of ten, Galileo began his studies at a monastery near Florence and intended to become a monk. However, his father was against his son leading a religious life, so he took Galileo away from the monastery. At 16, Galileo entered the University of Pisa to study medicine at his father's insistence. Instead, however, he became interested in mathematics and focused on it. Galileo left the university in 1585 without a degree. He continued his mathematical studies on his own and earned money by giving private lessons, then returned in 1589 to the University of Pisa to teach mathematics there.
He didn't invent the telescope
Galileo did not invent the telescope - this discovery is attributed to the Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey. However, he was the first person to systematically use optical instruments to study the sky. The Lippershey telescope patent application from 1608 is the earliest, but the Dutch government decided that the telescope was too easy to copy, especially since another scientist had already demonstrated a similar device a year earlier, so the patent was denied. In 1609, Galileo learned about the device and developed his own version, greatly improving the design. In the fall of that year, he pointed a telescope at the moon and found that it was covered with craters and mountains - thereby debunking the common belief that the surface of the moon is smooth.
His daughters were nuns
Galileo had three children with a woman named Marina Gamba, whom he never married. In 1613, he sent his two daughters, Virginia, born in 1600, and Livia, born a year later, to a monastery near Florence, where they remained for the rest of their lives, despite their father's troubles with the Catholic Church. Galileo maintained a close relationship with his eldest daughter, known as Sister Mary Celeste. In the convent she sewed and baked for him when she was relieved of her tasks. He, in turn, organized the supply of food and other necessary things to the impoverished monastery. Galileo's son Vincenzo, born in 1606, studied medicine at the University of Pisa, married and lived in Florence.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment
The heliocentric theory of how the universe functions has seriously challenged the widely held belief that the Earth is the center of the solar system. In 1616, the Catholic Church declared the theory heretical because it was seen as contradicting certain lines from the Bible. Galileo received permission from the Catholic Church to study the ideas of Copernicus, as long as he did not promote or defend them. In 1632 he published his famous book, which presented a discussion between Ptolemy and Copernicus. The book was seen as supporting the ideas of Copernicus, resulting in Galileo being tried by the Roman Inquisition a year later. He was found guilty of heresy, forced to publicly repent, and sentenced to life in prison.
He spent his final years under house arrest
Although Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment, his sentence was soon changed to house arrest. He lived his last years in a villa in his hometown of Arcetri, near Florence. He could not meet friends and publish books, but nevertheless he was visited by famous people from all over Europe, such as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the poet John Milton. In addition, he managed to transfer the manuscript of a new work, which was published in 1638 - at the same time Galileo was completely blind. He died on January 8, 1642 at the age of 77.
His middle finger is in the museum
After his death, Galileo was buried in the aisle of the church of Santa Croce in Florence. Almost a century later, in 1737, when the remains of the scientist were transported to the burial place of honor in the Basilica of Santa Croce, three fingers, a vertebra and a tooth were removed from the body. Two fingers and a tooth of Galileo were kept by one of his admirers - the body parts of the scientist were passed down from generation to generation, at the beginning of the 19th century it seemed that they were lost forever, until they showed up at an auction in 2009, where they were bought by one of the collectors. Meanwhile, the third finger, which is the middle finger of the right hand, was part of the display of many Italian museums. The stolen vertebra ended up at the University of Padua, where Galileo taught from 1592 to 1610.
NASA named spaceship after him
In 1989, NASA and a team from Germany launched a spacecraft named Galileo. Arriving at Jupiter in 1995, the spacecraft became the first to study the planet and its moons for an extended period of time.
The Vatican didn't admit that Galileo was right until 1992.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II initiated an investigation into the condemnation of Galileo by the Catholic Church. Thirteen years later and 359 years after the trial of the Inquisition, the Pope closed the investigation and issued an official apology, in which he acknowledged the mistakes made by the judges during the trial.
Galileo Galilei (Italian: Galileo Galilei). Born February 15, 1564 in Pisa - died January 8, 1642 in Arcetri. Italian physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who had a significant impact on the science of his time. He was the first to use a telescope to observe celestial bodies and made a number of outstanding astronomical discoveries.
Galileo is the founder of experimental physics. With his experiments, he convincingly refuted speculative metaphysics and laid the foundation for classical mechanics.
During his lifetime, he was known as an active supporter of the heliocentric system of the world, which led Galileo to a serious conflict with the Catholic Church.
Galileo was born in 1564 in the Italian city of Pisa, in the family of a well-born, but impoverished nobleman Vincenzo Galilei, a prominent music theorist and lute player. The full name of Galileo Galilei: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei (Italian: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de "Galilei). Representatives of the Galilean family have been mentioned in documents since the 14th century. Several of his direct ancestors were priors (members of the ruling council) of the Florentine Republic, and Galileo's great-great-grandfather , a famous physician, also named Galileo, was elected head of the republic in 1445.
The family of Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati had six children, but four managed to survive: Galileo (the eldest of the children), the daughters of Virginia, Livia and the youngest son of Michelangelo, who later also gained fame as a lute composer. In 1572 Vincenzo moved to Florence, the capital of the Duchy of Tuscany. The Medici dynasty ruling there was known for its wide and constant patronage of the arts and sciences.
Little is known about Galileo's childhood. From an early age, the boy was attracted to art; throughout his life he carried a love of music and drawing, which he mastered to perfection. In his mature years, the best artists of Florence - Cigoli, Bronzino and others - consulted with him on issues of perspective and composition; Cigoli even claimed that it was to Galileo that he owed his fame. Based on the writings of Galileo, one can also conclude that he had a remarkable literary talent.
Galileo received his primary education in the nearby monastery of Vallombrosa. The boy was very fond of learning and became one of the best students in the class. He considered the possibility of becoming a priest, but his father was against it.
In 1581, the 17-year-old Galileo, at the insistence of his father, entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. At the university, Galileo also attended lectures on geometry (previously he was completely unfamiliar with mathematics) and became so carried away by this science that his father began to fear that this would interfere with the study of medicine.
Galileo was a student for less than three years; during this time, he managed to thoroughly familiarize himself with the works of ancient philosophers and mathematicians and earned a reputation among teachers as an indomitable debater. Even then, he considered himself entitled to have his own opinion on all scientific issues, regardless of traditional authorities.
Probably during these years he became acquainted with the theory. Astronomical problems were then lively discussed, especially in connection with the just carried out calendar reform.
Soon the father's financial situation worsened, and he was unable to pay for his son's further education. The request to release Galileo from payment (such an exception was made for the most capable students) was rejected. Galileo returned to Florence (1585) without receiving a degree. Fortunately, he managed to attract attention with several ingenious inventions (for example, hydrostatic balances), thanks to which he met the educated and wealthy lover of science, the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte. The Marquis, unlike the Pisan professors, was able to correctly evaluate him. Even then, del Monte said that since the time the world has not seen such a genius as Galileo. Admired by the young man's extraordinary talent, the marquis became his friend and patron; he introduced Galileo to the Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand I de' Medici, and petitioned for a paid scientific position for him.
In 1589 Galileo returned to the University of Pisa, now a professor of mathematics. There he began to conduct independent research in mechanics and mathematics. True, he was given a minimum salary: 60 skudos a year (a professor of medicine received 2,000 skudos). In 1590, Galileo wrote a treatise On Motion.
In 1591, his father died, and responsibility for the family passed to Galileo. First of all, he had to take care of the education of his younger brother and the dowry of two unmarried sisters.
In 1592, Galileo received a position at the prestigious and wealthy University of Padua (Republic of Venice), where he taught astronomy, mechanics, and mathematics.
The years of stay in Padua are the most fruitful period of Galileo's scientific activity. He soon became the most famous professor in Padua. Crowds of students aspired to his lectures, the Venetian government constantly entrusted Galileo with the development of various kinds of technical devices, young Kepler and other scientific authorities of that time actively corresponded with him.
During these years he wrote the treatise Mechanics, which aroused some interest and was republished in a French translation. In early writings, as well as in correspondence, Galileo gave the first draft of a new general theory of the fall of bodies and the motion of a pendulum.
The reason for a new stage in the scientific research of Galileo was the appearance in 1604 of a new star, now called Kepler's Supernova. This awakens a general interest in astronomy, and Galileo delivers a series of private lectures. Having learned about the invention of the telescope in Holland, Galileo constructs the first telescope with his own hands in 1609 and sends it to the sky.
What Galileo saw was so amazing that even many years later there were people who refused to believe in his discoveries and claimed that it was an illusion or an illusion. Galileo discovered mountains on the Moon, the Milky Way broke up into separate stars, but the 4 satellites of Jupiter discovered by him (1610) were especially struck by his contemporaries. In honor of the four sons of his late patron Ferdinand de' Medici (who died in 1609), Galileo named these satellites "Medician Stars" (lat. Stellae Medicae). Now they have a more appropriate name. "Galilean satellites".
Galileo described his first discoveries with a telescope in the Starry Herald (lat. Sidereus Nuncius), published in Florence in 1610. The book was a sensational success throughout Europe, even the crowned persons were in a hurry to order a telescope. Galileo presented several telescopes to the Venetian Senate, which, in gratitude, appointed him professor for life with a salary of 1,000 florins. In September 1610, Kepler acquired a telescope, and in December, Galileo's discovery was confirmed by the influential Roman astronomer Clavius. There is general acceptance. Galileo becomes the most famous scientist in Europe, odes are composed in his honor, where he is compared with Columbus. The French king Henry IV on April 20, 1610, shortly before his death, asked Galileo to open some star for him.
However, there were also those who were dissatisfied. Astronomer Francesco Sizzi (Italian Sizzi) published a pamphlet where he stated that seven is a perfect number, and even there are seven holes in the human head, so there can only be seven planets, and Galileo's discoveries are an illusion. Astrologers and doctors also protested, complaining that the appearance of new celestial bodies "is fatal to astrology and most of medicine," since all the usual astrological methods "will be completely destroyed."
During these years, Galileo enters into a civil marriage with the Venetian Marina Gamba (Italian Marina Gamba). He never married Marina, but became the father of a son and two daughters. He named his son Vincenzo in memory of his father, and his daughters, in honor of his sisters, Virginia and Livia. Later, in 1619, Galileo officially legitimized his son; both daughters ended their lives in the monastery.
Pan-European fame and the need for money pushed Galileo to a disastrous step, as it turned out later: in 1610 he left quiet Venice, where he was inaccessible to the Inquisition, and moved to Florence. Duke Cosimo II Medici, son of Ferdinand, promised Galileo an honorary and profitable position as an adviser at the Tuscan court. He kept his promise, which allowed Galileo to solve the problem of huge debts that had accumulated after the marriage of his two sisters.
Galileo's duties at the court of Duke Cosimo II were not burdensome - teaching the sons of the Tuscan duke and participating in some matters as an adviser and representative of the duke. Formally, he is also enrolled as a professor at the University of Pisa, but is relieved of the tedious duty of lecturing.
Galileo continues research and discovers the phases of Venus, spots on the Sun, and then the rotation of the Sun around its axis. Galileo often set out his achievements (and often his priority) in a cocky-polemical style, which made him many new enemies (in particular, among the Jesuits).
The growth of Galileo's influence, the independence of his thinking, and his sharp opposition to the teachings of Aristotle contributed to the formation of an aggressive circle of his opponents, consisting of peripatetic professors and some church leaders. Galileo's ill-wishers were especially outraged by his propaganda of the heliocentric system of the world, since, in their opinion, the rotation of the Earth contradicted the texts of the Psalms (Psalm 103: 5), a verse from Ecclesiastes (Ecc. 1: 5), as well as an episode from the "Book of Joshua" ( Joshua 10:12), which refers to the immobility of the Earth and the movement of the Sun. In addition, a detailed substantiation of the concept of the Earth's immobility and refutation of the hypotheses about its rotation was contained in Aristotle's treatise "On the Sky" and in Ptolemy's "Almagest".
In 1611, Galileo, in the halo of his glory, decided to go to Rome, hoping to convince the Pope that Copernicanism was quite compatible with Catholicism. He was well received, elected the sixth member of the scientific "Academia dei Lincei", met Pope Paul V, influential cardinals. I showed them my telescope, gave explanations carefully and prudently. The cardinals created a whole commission to find out whether it was a sin to look at the sky through a trumpet, but they came to the conclusion that it was permissible. It was also encouraging that Roman astronomers openly discussed the question of whether Venus moves around the Earth or around the Sun (the change in the phases of Venus clearly spoke in favor of the second option).
Emboldened, Galileo, in a letter to his student Abbot Castelli (1613), stated that the Holy Scripture refers only to the salvation of the soul and is not authoritative in scientific matters: “not a single saying of Scripture has such a coercive force as any natural phenomenon has.” Moreover, he published this letter, which caused the appearance of denunciations to the Inquisition. In the same 1613, Galileo published the book Letters on Sunspots, in which he openly spoke in favor of the Copernican system. On February 25, 1615, the Roman Inquisition opened the first case against Galileo on charges of heresy. The last mistake of Galileo was the call to Rome to express its final attitude towards Copernicanism (1615).
All this caused a reaction that was the opposite of what was expected. Alarmed by the success of the Reformation, the Catholic Church decided to strengthen its spiritual monopoly - in particular, by banning Copernicanism. The position of the church is clarified by a letter from the influential Cardinal Bellarmino, sent on April 12, 1615, to the theologian Paolo Antonio Foscarini, a defender of Copernicanism. The cardinal explains that the church does not object to the interpretation of Copernicanism as a convenient mathematical device, but accepting it as a reality would mean admitting that the previous, traditional interpretation of the biblical text was erroneous.
March 5, 1616 Rome officially defines heliocentrism as a dangerous heresy: “To assert that the Sun stands motionless in the center of the world is an absurd opinion, false from a philosophical point of view and formally heretical, since it directly contradicts Holy Scripture. To assert that the Earth is not located in the center of the world, that it does not remain motionless and even possesses daily rotation, there is an opinion just as absurd, false from a philosophical point of view and sinful from a religious point of view.
The church ban on heliocentrism, in the truth of which Galileo was convinced, was unacceptable to the scientist. He returned to Florence and began to think about how, without formally violating the ban, to continue the defense of the truth. In the end, he decided to publish a book containing a neutral discussion of different points of view. He wrote this book for 16 years, collecting materials, honing his arguments and waiting for the right moment.
After the fateful decree of 1616, Galileo changed the direction of the struggle for several years - now he focuses his efforts mainly on the criticism of Aristotle, whose writings also formed the basis of the medieval worldview. In 1623, Galileo's book "The Assay Master" (Italian: Il Saggiatore) was published; this is a pamphlet directed against the Jesuits, in which Galileo sets out his erroneous theory of comets (he believed that comets are not cosmic bodies, but optical phenomena in the Earth's atmosphere). The position of the Jesuits (and Aristotle) in this case was closer to the truth: comets are extraterrestrial objects. This mistake, however, did not prevent Galileo from expounding and wittily arguing his scientific method, out of which grew the mechanistic worldview of subsequent centuries.
In the same 1623, Matteo Barberini, an old acquaintance and friend of Galileo, was elected as the new Pope, under the name Urban VIII. In April 1624, Galileo traveled to Rome, hoping to get the edict of 1616 repealed. He was received with all honors, awarded with gifts and flattering words, but achieved nothing on the main issue. The edict was rescinded only two centuries later, in 1818. Urban VIII especially praised the book "The Assayer" and forbade the Jesuits to continue polemics with Galileo.
In 1624 Galileo published Letters to Ingoli; it is a response to an anti-Copernican treatise by theologian Francesco Ingoli. Galileo immediately stipulates that he is not going to defend Copernicanism, but only wants to show that he has solid scientific foundations. He used this technique later in his main book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Systems of the World; part of the text of the "Letters to Ingoli" was simply transferred to the "Dialogue". In his consideration, Galileo equates the stars to the Sun, points to the colossal distance to them, and speaks of the infinity of the Universe. He even allowed himself a dangerous phrase: “If any point of the world can be called its [world's] center, then this is the center of revolutions of celestial bodies; and in it, as anyone who understands these matters knows, is the Sun, and not the Earth. He also stated that the planets and the Moon, like the Earth, attract the bodies that are on them.
But the main scientific value of this work is the laying of the foundations of a new, non-Aristotelian mechanics, deployed 12 years later in Galileo's last work, Conversations and Mathematical Proofs of Two New Sciences.
In modern terminology, Galileo proclaimed the homogeneity of space (the absence of the center of the world) and the equality of inertial frames of reference. An important anti-Aristotelian point should be noted: Galileo's argument implicitly assumes that the results of earthly experiments can be transferred to celestial bodies, that is, the laws on Earth and in heaven are the same.
At the end of his book, Galileo, with obvious irony, expresses the hope that his essay will help Ingoli to replace his objections to Copernicanism with others more appropriate to science.
In 1628, 18-year-old Ferdinand II, a pupil of Galileo, became Grand Duke of Tuscany; his father Cosimo II had died seven years earlier. The new duke maintained warm relations with the scientist, was proud of him and helped in every possible way.
Valuable information about the life of Galileo is contained in the surviving correspondence between Galileo and his eldest daughter Virginia, who took the name Maria Celesta as a monk. She lived in a Franciscan monastery in Arcetri, near Florence. The monastery, as it should be with the Franciscans, was poor, the father often sent food and flowers to his daughter, in return the daughter made jam for him, mended his clothes, copied documents. Only letters from Mary Celeste have survived - letters from Galileo, most likely, the monastery destroyed after the process of 1633. The second daughter, Livia, lived in the same monastery, but at that time she was often sick and did not take part in correspondence.
In 1629, Vincenzo, the son of Galileo, married and settled with his father. The following year, Galileo had a grandson named after him. Soon, however, alarmed by another plague, Vincenzo and his family leave. Galileo considers a plan to move to Arcetri, closer to his beloved daughter; this plan was realized in September 1631.
In March 1630, the book "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican", the result of almost 30 years of work, was basically completed, and Galileo, deciding that the moment for its release was favorable, provided the then version to his friend, papal censor Riccardi . For almost a year, he waits for his decision, then decides to go for a trick. He adds a preface to the book, where he declares his goal to debunk Copernicanism and gives the book to Tuscan censorship, and, according to some sources, in an incomplete and softened form. Having received a positive response, he forwards it to Rome. In the summer of 1631, he receives a long-awaited permit.
At the beginning of 1632, the Dialogue was published. The book is written in the form of a dialogue between three lovers of science: the Copernican Salviati, the neutral participant in the Sagredo and Simplicio, the adherent of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Although there are no authorial conclusions in the book, the strength of the arguments in favor of the Copernican system speaks for itself. It is also important that the book was written not in learned Latin, but in "folk" Italian.
Galileo hoped that the Pope would treat his trick as condescendingly as he had previously treated his Letters to Ingoli, similar in ideas, but he miscalculated. To top it off, he himself recklessly mails 30 copies of his book to influential clerics in Rome. As noted above, shortly before (1623) Galileo came into conflict with the Jesuits; he had few defenders left in Rome, and even those, assessing the danger of the situation, preferred not to intervene.
Most biographers agree that in the simpleton Simplicio, the Pope recognized himself, his arguments, and was furious. Historians note such characteristic features of Urban as despotism, stubbornness and incredible conceit. Galileo himself later believed that the initiative of the process belonged to the Jesuits, who presented the Pope with an extremely tendentious denunciation about Galileo's book (see Galileo's letter to Diodati below). A few months later, the book was banned and withdrawn from sale, and Galileo was summoned to Rome (despite the plague epidemic) to be judged by the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy. After unsuccessful attempts to obtain a reprieve due to ill health and the ongoing plague (Urban threatened to deliver him by force in shackles), Galileo complied, served the plague quarantine, and arrived in Rome on February 13, 1633. Niccolini, the representative of Tuscany in Rome, at the direction of Duke Ferdinand II, settled Galileo in the embassy building. The investigation dragged on from April 21 to June 21, 1633.
At the end of the first interrogation, the accused was taken into custody. Galileo spent only 18 days in prison (from April 12 to April 30, 1633) - this unusual indulgence was probably caused by Galileo's consent to repent, as well as the influence of the Tuscan duke, who was constantly fussing about mitigating the fate of his old teacher. Taking into account his illness and advanced age, one of the service rooms in the building of the Inquisition Tribunal was used as a prison.
Historians have investigated whether Galileo was subjected to torture during his imprisonment. The documents of the trial have not been published in full by the Vatican, and what has been published may have undergone preliminary editing. Nevertheless, the following words were found in the verdict of the Inquisition: "Noticing that you do not quite frankly confess your intentions in your answers, we considered it necessary to resort to a strict test."
After the “test”, Galileo, in a letter from prison (April 23), carefully reports that he does not get out of bed, as he is tormented by “terrible pain in his thigh”. Some biographers of Galileo suggest that torture really took place, while others consider this assumption unproven, only the threat of torture, often accompanied by an imitation of the torture itself, is documented. In any case, if there was torture, it was on a moderate scale, since already on April 30 the scientist was released back to the Tuscan embassy.
Judging by the surviving documents and letters, scientific topics were not discussed at the trial. There were two main questions: did Galileo deliberately violate the edict of 1616, and whether he repented of his deed. Three experts of the Inquisition gave a conclusion: the book violates the ban on the promotion of the "Pythagorean" doctrine. As a result, the scientist was faced with a choice: either he will repent and renounce his "delusions", or he will suffer the fate.
"After reviewing the whole course of the case and hearing the testimony, His Holiness decided to interrogate Galileo under threat of torture and, if he resisted, then after a preliminary renunciation as a strongly suspected of heresy ... to sentence him to imprisonment at the discretion of the Holy Congregation. He was ordered not to argue more in writing or orally how -or in an image about the movement of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun ... under pain of punishment as incorrigible.
The last interrogation of Galileo took place on June 21. Galileo confirmed that he agreed to pronounce the renunciation required of him; this time he was not allowed to go to the embassy and was again taken under arrest. On June 22, the verdict was announced: Galileo was guilty of distributing a book with "false, heretical, teaching contrary to Holy Scripture" about the motion of the Earth:
“As a result of consideration of your guilt and your consciousness in it, we condemn and declare you, Galileo, for all of the above and confessed by you under strong suspicion at this Holy Judgment Seat in heresy, as being possessed by a false and contrary to Sacred and Divine Scripture thought that the Sun is the center of the earth orbit and does not move from east to west, the Earth is mobile and is not the center of the universe.We also recognize you as a disobedient church authority, which forbade you to expound, defend and pass off as a probable teaching, recognized as false and contrary to Holy Scripture ... So that such a grave and harmful sin your disobedience did not remain without any recompense, and you would not later become even more daring, but, on the contrary, would serve as an example and a warning to others, we decided to ban a book called “Dialogue” by Galileo Galilei, and imprison you yourself at St. judgment for an indefinite period."
Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment for a term set by the Pope. He was declared not a heretic, but "strongly suspected of heresy"; such a wording was also a grave accusation, but saved from the fire. After the announcement of the verdict, Galileo on his knees pronounced the text of the renunciation offered to him. Copies of the verdict, by personal order of Pope Urban, were sent to all universities in Catholic Europe.
The Pope did not keep Galileo in prison for long. After the verdict, Galileo was settled in one of the Medici villas, from where he was transferred to the palace of his friend, Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena. Five months later, Galileo was allowed to go home, and he settled in Arcetri, next to the monastery where his daughters were. Here he spent the rest of his life under house arrest and under the constant supervision of the Inquisition.
The detention regime for Galileo did not differ from the prison regime, and he was constantly threatened with transfer to prison for the slightest violation of the regime. Galileo was not allowed to visit cities, although a seriously ill prisoner needed constant medical supervision. In the early years, he was forbidden to receive guests under pain of transfer to prison; subsequently, the regime was somewhat relaxed, and friends were able to visit Galileo - however, no more than one at a time.
The Inquisition followed the captive for the rest of his life; even at the death of Galileo, two of its representatives were present. All his printed works were subject to especially careful censorship. It should be noted that in Protestant Holland the publication of Dialogue continued.
In 1634, the 33-year-old eldest daughter Virginia (in monasticism Maria Celesta), Galileo's favorite, who devotedly looked after her sick father and acutely experienced his misadventures, died. Galileo writes that he is possessed by "boundless sadness and melancholy ... I constantly hear my dear daughter calling me." Galileo's health has deteriorated, but he continues to work vigorously in the areas of science allowed for him.
A letter from Galileo to his friend Elia Diodati (1634) has been preserved, where he shares news of his misadventures, points to their perpetrators (Jesuits) and shares plans for future research. The letter was sent through a confidant, and Galileo is quite frank in it: "In Rome, I was sentenced by the Holy Inquisition to imprisonment at the direction of His Holiness ... the place of imprisonment for me was this small town one mile from Florence, with the strictest prohibition to go down to the city, meet and talk with friends and invite them ... When I returned from the monastery along with the doctor who visited my sick daughter before her death, and the doctor told me that the case was hopeless and that she would not survive the next day (as it happened), I found the vicar-inquisitor at home. Holy Inquisition in Rome… that I should not have applied for permission to return to Florence, otherwise I would be put in a real prison of the Holy Inquisition… This incident and others about which it would be too long to write shows that my fury is very powerful persecutors are constantly increasing, and they finally wished to reveal their faces: when one of my dear friends in Rome, about two months old, in a conversation with the padre Christopher Greenberg, a Jesuit, a mathematician of this college, touched upon my affairs, this Jesuit said to my friend literally the following: “If Galileo managed to keep the favor of the fathers of this college, he would live in freedom, enjoying fame, he would not have any grief and he I could write at my own discretion about anything - even about the movement of the Earth, ”etc. Jesuits".
At the end of the letter, Galileo ridicules the ignoramuses who “declare the mobility of the Earth a heresy” and announces that he intends to anonymously publish a new treatise in defense of his position, but first wants to finish a long-planned book on mechanics. Of these two plans, he managed to carry out only the second - he wrote a book on mechanics, summing up his earlier discoveries in this area.
Galileo's last book was Conversations and Mathematical Proofs of Two New Sciences, which outlines the basics of kinematics and strength of materials. In fact, the content of the book is a debacle of Aristotelian dynamics; in return, Galileo puts forward his principles of motion, proven by experience. Defying the Inquisition, Galileo brought out in the new book the same three characters as in the previously banned Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World. In May 1636, the scientist negotiates the publication of his work in Holland, and then secretly forwards the manuscript there. In a confidential letter to a friend, the Comte de Noel (to whom he dedicated this book), Galileo writes that the new work “puts me back in the ranks of the fighters.” "Conversations ..." was published in July 1638, and the book came to Arcetri almost a year later - in June 1639. This work became a reference book for Huygens and Newton, who completed the construction of the foundations of mechanics begun by Galileo.
Only once, shortly before his death (March 1638), the Inquisition allowed the blind and seriously ill Galileo to leave Arcetri and settle in Florence for treatment. At the same time, under pain of prison, he was forbidden to leave the house and discuss the “damned opinion” about the movement of the Earth. However, a few months later, after the appearance of the Dutch edition of "Conversations ...", the permission was canceled, and the scientist was ordered to return to Arcetri. Galileo was going to continue "Conversations ...", writing two more chapters, but did not have time to complete his plan.
Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, at the age of 78, in his bed. Pope Urban forbade the burial of Galileo in the family crypt of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. They buried him in Archetri without honors, the Pope also did not allow him to erect a monument.
The youngest daughter, Livia, died in the convent. Later, the only grandson of Galileo also took the monastic vows and burned the priceless manuscripts of the scientist that he kept as ungodly. He was the last representative of the Galilean family.
In 1737, the ashes of Galileo, as he requested, were transferred to the Basilica of Santa Croce, where on March 17 he was solemnly buried next to Michelangelo. In 1758, Pope Benedict XIV ordered that works advocating heliocentrism be struck out of the Index of Forbidden Books; however, this work was carried out slowly and was completed only in 1835.
From 1979 to 1981, at the initiative of Pope John Paul II, a commission for the rehabilitation of Galileo worked, and on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II officially recognized that the Inquisition had made a mistake in 1633, forcing the scientist to renounce the theory of Copernicus by force.
Scientific achievements of Galileo:
Galileo is rightfully considered the founder of not only experimental, but - to a large extent - theoretical physics. In his scientific method, he consciously combined thoughtful experiment with its rational reflection and generalization, and personally gave impressive examples of such studies.
Galileo is considered one of the founders of mechanism. This scientific approach considers the Universe as a gigantic mechanism, and complex natural processes as combinations of the simplest causes, the main of which is mechanical movement. The analysis of mechanical motion is at the heart of Galileo's work.
Galileo formulated the correct laws of falling: speed increases in proportion to time, and distance increases in proportion to the square of time. In accordance with his scientific method, he immediately brought experimental data confirming the laws he had discovered. Moreover, Galileo considered (on the 4th day of the Conversations) a generalized problem: to investigate the behavior of a falling body with a non-zero horizontal initial velocity. He correctly assumed that the flight of such a body would be a superposition (superposition) of two "simple motions": a uniform horizontal motion by inertia and a uniformly accelerated vertical fall.
Galileo proved that the indicated body, as well as any body thrown at an angle to the horizon, flies along a parabola. In the history of science, this is the first solved problem of dynamics. In conclusion of the study, Galileo proved that the maximum flight range of an thrown body is achieved for a throw angle of 45 ° (this assumption was previously made by Tartaglia, who, however, could not strictly substantiate it). Based on his model, Galileo (still in Venice) compiled the first artillery tables.
Galileo also refuted the second of the above laws of Aristotle, formulating the first law of mechanics (the law of inertia): in the absence of external forces, the body either rests or moves uniformly. What we call inertia, Galileo poetically called "indestructibly imprinted movement." True, he allowed free movement not only in a straight line, but also in a circle (apparently for astronomical reasons). The correct wording of the law was later given by and; nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the very concept of "motion by inertia" was first introduced by Galileo, and the first law of mechanics rightly bears his name.
Galileo is one of the founders of the principle of relativity in classical mechanics, which, in a slightly refined form, became one of the cornerstones of the modern interpretation of this science and was later named after him.
The discoveries of Galileo listed above, among other things, allowed him to refute many arguments of the opponents of the heliocentric system of the world, who argued that the rotation of the Earth would noticeably affect the phenomena occurring on its surface. For example, according to geocentrists, the surface of the rotating Earth during the fall of any body would leave from under this body, shifting by tens or even hundreds of meters. Galileo confidently predicted: “Any experiments that should indicate more against than for the rotation of the Earth will be fruitless.”
Galileo published a study of the oscillations of a pendulum and stated that the period of oscillations does not depend on their amplitude (this is approximately true for small amplitudes). He also found that the periods of a pendulum are related as the square roots of its length. Galileo's results attracted the attention of Huygens, who invented the clock with a pendulum regulator (1657); from that moment on, it became possible to make accurate measurements in experimental physics.
For the first time in the history of science, Galileo raised the question of the strength of rods and beams in bending, and thus laid the foundation for a new science - the strength of materials.
Many of Galileo's arguments are sketches of physical laws discovered much later. For example, in the "Dialogue" he reports that the vertical speed of a ball rolling on the surface of a complex terrain depends only on its current height, and illustrates this fact with several thought experiments; now we would formulate this conclusion as the law of conservation of energy in the gravitational field. Similarly, he explains the (theoretically undamped) swings of the pendulum.
In statics, Galileo introduced the fundamental concept of the moment of force.
In 1609, Galileo independently built his first telescope with a convex lens and a concave eyepiece. The tube gave approximately a threefold increase. Soon he managed to build a telescope giving a magnification of 32 times. Note that it was Galileo who introduced the term telescope into science (the term itself was suggested to him by Federico Cesi, the founder of the Accademia dei Lincei). A number of Galileo's telescopic discoveries contributed to the establishment of the heliocentric system of the world, which Galileo actively promoted, and to the refutation of the views of the geocentrists Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Galileo made the first telescopic observations of celestial bodies on January 7, 1610. These observations showed that the Moon, like the Earth, has a complex relief - covered with mountains and craters. Known since ancient times, Galileo explained the ashen light of the Moon as the result of sunlight reflected by the Earth hitting our natural satellite. All this refuted Aristotle’s teaching about the opposition of “earthly” and “heavenly”: the Earth became a body of the same nature as the heavenly bodies, and this, in turn, served as an indirect argument in favor of the Copernican system: if other planets move, then naturally assume that the earth is moving. Galileo also discovered the libration of the moon and fairly accurately estimated the height of the lunar mountains.
Galileo also discovered (independently of Johann Fabricius and Harriot) sunspots. The existence of spots and their constant variability disproved Aristotle's thesis about the perfection of the heavens (as opposed to the "sublunar world"). Based on the results of their observations, Galileo concluded that the Sun rotates around its axis, estimated the period of this rotation and the position of the Sun's axis.
Galileo found that Venus changes phases. On the one hand, this proved that it shines with the reflected light of the Sun (about which there was no clarity in the astronomy of the previous period). On the other hand, the order of phase change corresponded to the heliocentric system: in Ptolemy's theory, Venus, as the "lower" planet, was always closer to the Earth than the Sun, and "full Venus" was impossible.
Galileo also noted the strange "appendages" of Saturn, but the opening of the ring was prevented by the weakness of the telescope and the rotation of the ring, which hid it from the earthly observer. Half a century later, the ring of Saturn was discovered and described by Huygens, who had at his disposal a 92-fold telescope.
Galileo showed that when viewed through a telescope, the planets are seen as disks, the apparent dimensions of which in various configurations change in such a ratio as follows from the theory of Copernicus. However, the diameter of the stars during observations with a telescope does not increase. This disproved the estimates of the apparent and real size of the stars, which were used by some astronomers as an argument against the heliocentric system.
The Milky Way, which looks like a solid glow to the naked eye, broke up into separate stars (which confirmed Democritus' guess), and a huge number of previously unknown stars became visible.
Galileo explained why the earth's axis does not rotate when the earth revolves around the sun; To explain this phenomenon, Copernicus introduced a special "third motion" of the Earth. Galileo showed by experience that the axis of a freely moving top retains its direction by itself.
Probability theory includes his research on outcomes when throwing dice. His Discourse on Dice (Considerazione sopra il giuoco dei dadi, date unknown, published 1718) provides a fairly complete analysis of this problem.
In Conversations on Two New Sciences, he formulated the "Galilean paradox": there are as many natural numbers as their squares, although most of the numbers are not squares. This prompted further research into the nature of infinite sets and their classification; the process ended with the creation set theory.
Galileo created a hydrostatic balance to determine the specific gravity of solids. Galileo described their construction in the treatise "La bilancetta" (1586).
Galileo developed the first thermometer, still without a scale (1592), proportional compass used in drawing (1606), microscope, poor quality (1612); with it, Galileo studied insects.
Galileo's students:
Borelli, who continued to study the moons of Jupiter; he was one of the first to formulate the law of universal gravitation. Founder of biomechanics.
Viviani, the first biographer of Galileo, a talented physicist and mathematician.
Cavalieri, the forerunner of mathematical analysis, in whose fate the support of Galileo played a huge role.
Castelli, creator of hydrometry.
Torricelli, who became an outstanding physicist and inventor.
Page:
Galileo Galilei (Italian Galileo Galilei; February 15, 1564 - January 8, 1642) was an Italian philosopher, physicist and astronomer who had a significant impact on the science of his time. Galileo is mainly known for his observations of the planets and stars, his active support of the heliocentric world system, and his experiments in mechanics.
Galileo was born in 1564 in Pisa, Italy. At the age of 18, on the instructions of his father, he entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. While at the university, Galileo Galilei became interested in mathematics and physics. Soon he was forced to leave the university for financial reasons and began to study mechanics on his own. In 1589, Galileo returned to the University of Pisa on an invitation to teach mathematics. He later moved to the University of Padua where he taught geometry, mechanics and astronomy. At that time, he began to make significant scientific discoveries.
Everyone can speak confusedly, few can speak clearly.
Galileo Galilei
In 1609, Galileo Galilei independently built his first telescope with a convex lens and a concave eyepiece. The tube gave approximately a threefold increase. Soon he managed to build a telescope giving a magnification of 32 times. Observations through a telescope showed that the Moon was covered with mountains and pitted with craters, the stars lost their apparent size, and for the first time their colossal distance was comprehended, Jupiter found its own moons - four satellites, the Milky Way broke up into separate stars, a huge number of new stars became visible. Galileo discovers the phases of Venus, sunspots and the rotation of the Sun.
Based on observations of the sky, Galileo concluded that the heliocentric system of the world proposed by N. Copernicus is correct. This was at odds with the literal reading of Psalms 93 and 104, as well as the verse from Ecclesiastes 1:5, which speaks of the stillness of the earth. Galileo was summoned to Rome and demanded to stop promoting his views, to which he was forced to comply.
In 1632, the book "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican" was published. The book is written in the form of a dialogue between two supporters of Copernicus and one supporter of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Despite the fact that the publication of the book was allowed by Pope Urban VIII, a friend of Galileo, a few months later the sale of the book was banned, and Galileo was summoned to Rome for trial, where he arrived in February 1633. The investigation dragged on from April 21 to June 21, 1633, and on June 22 Galileo had to pronounce the text of the abdication offered to him. In the last years of his life he had to work in the most difficult conditions. At his Villa Archertri (Florence), he was under house arrest (under constant supervision of the Inquisition) and was not allowed to visit the city (Rome). In 1634, Galileo's beloved daughter, who had cared for him, died.
Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, he was buried in Archertri, without honors and tombstone. Only in 1737 was his last will fulfilled - his ashes were transferred to the monastic chapel of the Cathedral of Santa Croce in Florence, where on March 17 he was solemnly buried next to Michelangelo.
From 1979 to 1981, at the initiative of Pope John Paul II, a commission for the rehabilitation of Galileo Galilei worked, and on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II officially recognized that the Inquisition had made a mistake in 1633, forcing the scientist to renounce the theory of Copernicus by force.
I prefer to find one truth, even in insignificant things, than to argue for a long time about the greatest questions, without reaching any truth.
Galileo(Galilei) Galileo (1564-1642)
Italian scientist, one of the founders of natural science.
He made his first discovery - the law of pendulum oscillation - in his youth. From 1589 he lectured at the University of Pisa. In 1590, Galileo wrote a treatise On Motion, in which he speaks with sharp objections to the views of Aristotle and discovers that the acceleration of free fall of bodies does not depend on their mass. In 1592 he received the chair of the University of Padua.
The most important achievement of Galileo in dynamics was the creation of the principle of relativity, which became the basis of the modern theory of relativity. Resolutely abandoning Aristotle's ideas about motion, Galileo came to the conclusion that motion (meaning only mechanical processes) is relative, that is, one cannot speak of motion without specifying in relation to which "reference body" it occurs; the laws of motion are irrelevant, and therefore, being in a closed cabin (he figuratively wrote “in a closed room under the deck of a ship”), it is impossible to establish by any experiments whether this cabin is at rest or whether it moves uniformly and rectilinearly (“without shocks”, in the words of Galileo ).
Leaning Tower in Pisa. This is where Galileo refuted Aristotle
Title page of the Dialogues
The first news of the invention of the spyglass in Holland reached Venice already in 1609. Intrigued by this discovery, Galileo significantly improved the device. On January 7, 1610, a significant event took place: having directed the constructed telescope (with approximately 30x magnification) to the sky, Galileo noticed three bright points near the planet Jupiter, these were the satellites of Jupiter (later Galileo discovered the fourth). By repeating observations at regular intervals, he became convinced that the satellites revolve around Jupiter. This served as a visual model of the Keplerian system, of which Galileo's reflections and experience made him a staunch supporter.
The invention of the telescope made it possible to detect the phases of Venus and make sure that the Milky Way consists of a huge number of stars. Having discovered sunspots and observing their movement, Galileo quite correctly explained this by the rotation of the Sun. The study of the surface of the moon showed that it is covered with mountains and pitted with craters. Even this cursory list would make it possible to rank Galileo among the greatest astronomers, but his role was exceptional only because he made a truly revolutionary revolution, laying the foundation for instrumental astronomy as a whole.
In the tenth years of the 17th century, persecution began. Galileo managed to defend his teaching, but not for long: after the release in 1632 of the Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow, where in the form of a conversation between three interlocutors, an idea was given of the two main systems of the world of Ptolemy and Copernicus, he was ordered to appear in Rome. Interrogations, the threat of torture broke the sick scientist, and on June 22 in the monastery of St. Minerva Galileo renounces his views and brings public repentance. Now, until the end of his life, he became a prisoner of the Inquisition and was forced to live in his villa Arcetri near Florence. And only in 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the decision of the Inquisition court erroneous and rehabilitated Galileo.
Galileo before the court of the Inquisition
