6 ms·

Researcher discovers another astronomy book written by Galileo Galilei

111 points by benbreen 4y ago

popol12 4y ago
I hoped it would be a completely new piece of work but what they actually found out is that an already known book was authored by Galileo under a pseudonym, which is a tad less exciting
29athrowaway 4y ago
"E pur si muove" The biggest fuck you in history. I love Galileo.
- 77pt77 4y ago
  Probably apocryphal. Also the priests knew he was right. He just pissed off the Pope and was punished for that, not for any astronomical ideas. That was just the excuse.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    How did he piss off the pope?
    - antognini 4y ago
      Galileo had spoken of these ideas with the pope (who was a friend) previously and the pope was somewhat amenable to them, but still preferred geocentrism. The pope thought that Galileo should write up his ideas about heliocentrism, but asked that he include the arguments in favor of geocentrism as well. Galileo then wrote his work as a conversation consisting of two intelligent men, one who favors heliocentrism and a neutral arbiter, along with a slow-witted character appropriately named "Simplicio," who gives ridiculous arguments in favor of geocentrism. It was no mystery that Simplicio was a stand-in for the pope.
      - nier 4y ago
        Thanks for your enlightening comment. This seems to be a well-written article that goes more into depth: https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/galileo-the-church-and-heliocentricity-a-rough-guide/ https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/galileo-the-church-a...
      - tenpies 4y ago
        It's quite interesting to think that this problem persists today - with the modern popes of the modern religions of course.
        77pt77 4y ago
        And it won't ever go away with social apes.
      - nurettin 4y ago
        I really can't blame the guy. Imagine the evolution vs creationism "debates" of the 21st century and the creationists asking for "the other view" to be represented in public schools when we know for a fact that life and speciation didn't just appear ex-nihilo. Honestly, I think someone needs to ridicule the ridiculous.
        positus 4y ago
        > we know for a fact that life and speciation didn't just appear ex-nihilo Man takes a few years of school, reads a few books, and thinks he has a comprehensive idea of what happened supposedly millions of years ago. Where were you when the earth was formed?
        nurettin 4y ago
        Man shits on school, books and descends into solipsism after reading about an idea he doesn't favor.
        dylan604 4y ago
        Even the most astute student of science would have to admit that the concept of where life began on Earth isn't proven. It's just a theory. We've seen evidence of evolution, so we know evolution exists. However, there is no second successfully reproduced experiment of Earth to see if the theory is correct. We keep finding potential candidates, but none have proven the theories yet. At this point, the omniscient creator is not any less provable. While it might sound ridiculous, there's no more proof for other ideas. After all, even if you subscribe to the Big Bang, where did all of that mass that went Bang! come from?
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    Aww, you ruined it.
  - antognini 4y ago
    It was a little more complicated as to whether the priests (and other astronomers) knew he was right. Heliocentrism made a specific prediction of parallax --- namely that the stars would move back and forth over the course of a year. But this wasn't observed which is one of the main reasons that many astronomers remained skeptical of the idea. Tycho Brahe proposed an alternative model that adopted many of the advantages of heliocentrism but didn't have the parallax problem. In his theory all the planets revolved around the Sun, but the Sun revolved around the Earth. Of course it turned out that the stars were much, much further away than anyone expected, so the parallax effect was too small to be seen until the 19th century. But your broader point is correct, Galileo's troubles were brought about more due to his political indiscretions than his astronomy per se.
    - verisimi 4y ago
      > Of course it turned out that the stars were much, much further away than anyone expected, so the parallax effect was too small to be seen until the 19th century. How do we know how far away the stars are? (serious question)
      - DavidSJ 4y ago
        This very parallax effect. We know how far the Sun is from the Earth, and the Earth has moved twice this distance from January 1 to July 1. This in turn allows us to extrapolate distance to some of the nearest stars by their apparent motion relative to the other, "fixed" stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ne0GArfeMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ne0GArfeMs
        avn2109 4y ago
        OK but then how do we know how far the sun is from the earth? Is it like "bounce a signal off it and count time of flight?" (Another serious question.)
        4y ago
  - cygx 4y ago
    In my opinion, that would make things even worse: The sentencing clearly states that the earth revolving around the sun "is a proposition absurd and false in philosophy, and formerly heretical", and by that time, Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium had already been placed on the Index of Prohibited Books. Are you saying the church actually knew Galileo was right, and did this anyway?
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      "Are you saying the church actually knew Galileo was right, and did this anyway? " Not OP, but from what I know about the whole topic: Not the church in its whole, but very likely the persons involved with the case and likely the pope knew. In the way of, "technically he might be right, but those technical details are attacking the philosophy and very foundations of our church, which already is under heavy attack from all sides" So you likeley have pure power motivation, but for "true believers" it was more, basically attacking the foundations of the one and only true church (this is what "catholic" actually means). So even if what Galilei said sounds true and logical, it cannot be true as it would question the truth of the believe, which is not to be questioned. Therefore the logic must be wrong.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - 77pt77 4y ago
      They knew he probably wasn't wrong and didn't give a shit about it. All they wanted was a way to punish him and going so clearly against "common sense" and orthodoxy was perfect and they used that.
  - BoxOfRain 4y ago
    >He just pissed off the Pope and was punished for that, not for any astronomical ideas. It all comes down to politics and power structures in the end.
    - swayvil 4y ago
      It's like social media. Europe was the Pope's subreddit. Don't piss off the moderator. It ain't rational but it's true.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        It's even more like that than you might suspect; the old moderator stepped down (died) and the new one was a friend of Galileo, so he ignored warnings to not shitpost too much, and ate a very moderate "ban".
    - 77pt77 4y ago
      This can't be stressed enough. He most certainly was not punished for any ideas, apart from making fun of the Pope and pissing off other people with power.
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
Obligatory Podcast on this : https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/subject-to-change/id1436447503?i=1000536921506 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/subject-to-change/id14... "Subject to change" is a surprisingly great podcast and this is a pretty good episode.

111 points by benbreen 4y ago

I hoped it would be a completely new piece of work but what they actually found out is that an already known book was authored by Galileo under a pseudonym, which is a tad less exciting

29athrowaway 4y ago

"E pur si muove" The biggest fuck you in history. I love Galileo.

77pt77 4y ago
Probably apocryphal. Also the priests knew he was right. He just pissed off the Pope and was punished for that, not for any astronomical ideas. That was just the excuse.
- googlryas 4y ago
  How did he piss off the pope?
  - antognini 4y ago
    Galileo had spoken of these ideas with the pope (who was a friend) previously and the pope was somewhat amenable to them, but still preferred geocentrism. The pope thought that Galileo should write up his ideas about heliocentrism, but asked that he include the arguments in favor of geocentrism as well. Galileo then wrote his work as a conversation consisting of two intelligent men, one who favors heliocentrism and a neutral arbiter, along with a slow-witted character appropriately named "Simplicio," who gives ridiculous arguments in favor of geocentrism. It was no mystery that Simplicio was a stand-in for the pope.
    - nier 4y ago
      Thanks for your enlightening comment. This seems to be a well-written article that goes more into depth: https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/galileo-the-church-and-heliocentricity-a-rough-guide/ https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/galileo-the-church-a...
    - tenpies 4y ago
      It's quite interesting to think that this problem persists today - with the modern popes of the modern religions of course.
      - 77pt77 4y ago
        And it won't ever go away with social apes.
    - nurettin 4y ago
      I really can't blame the guy. Imagine the evolution vs creationism "debates" of the 21st century and the creationists asking for "the other view" to be represented in public schools when we know for a fact that life and speciation didn't just appear ex-nihilo. Honestly, I think someone needs to ridicule the ridiculous.
      - positus 4y ago
        > we know for a fact that life and speciation didn't just appear ex-nihilo Man takes a few years of school, reads a few books, and thinks he has a comprehensive idea of what happened supposedly millions of years ago. Where were you when the earth was formed?
        nurettin 4y ago
        Man shits on school, books and descends into solipsism after reading about an idea he doesn't favor.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        Even the most astute student of science would have to admit that the concept of where life began on Earth isn't proven. It's just a theory. We've seen evidence of evolution, so we know evolution exists. However, there is no second successfully reproduced experiment of Earth to see if the theory is correct. We keep finding potential candidates, but none have proven the theories yet. At this point, the omniscient creator is not any less provable. While it might sound ridiculous, there's no more proof for other ideas. After all, even if you subscribe to the Big Bang, where did all of that mass that went Bang! come from?
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  Aww, you ruined it.
- antognini 4y ago
  It was a little more complicated as to whether the priests (and other astronomers) knew he was right. Heliocentrism made a specific prediction of parallax --- namely that the stars would move back and forth over the course of a year. But this wasn't observed which is one of the main reasons that many astronomers remained skeptical of the idea. Tycho Brahe proposed an alternative model that adopted many of the advantages of heliocentrism but didn't have the parallax problem. In his theory all the planets revolved around the Sun, but the Sun revolved around the Earth. Of course it turned out that the stars were much, much further away than anyone expected, so the parallax effect was too small to be seen until the 19th century. But your broader point is correct, Galileo's troubles were brought about more due to his political indiscretions than his astronomy per se.
  - verisimi 4y ago
    > Of course it turned out that the stars were much, much further away than anyone expected, so the parallax effect was too small to be seen until the 19th century. How do we know how far away the stars are? (serious question)
    - DavidSJ 4y ago
      This very parallax effect. We know how far the Sun is from the Earth, and the Earth has moved twice this distance from January 1 to July 1. This in turn allows us to extrapolate distance to some of the nearest stars by their apparent motion relative to the other, "fixed" stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ne0GArfeMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ne0GArfeMs
      - avn2109 4y ago
        OK but then how do we know how far the sun is from the earth? Is it like "bounce a signal off it and count time of flight?" (Another serious question.)
        4y ago
- cygx 4y ago
  In my opinion, that would make things even worse: The sentencing clearly states that the earth revolving around the sun "is a proposition absurd and false in philosophy, and formerly heretical", and by that time, Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium had already been placed on the Index of Prohibited Books. Are you saying the church actually knew Galileo was right, and did this anyway?
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "Are you saying the church actually knew Galileo was right, and did this anyway? " Not OP, but from what I know about the whole topic: Not the church in its whole, but very likely the persons involved with the case and likely the pope knew. In the way of, "technically he might be right, but those technical details are attacking the philosophy and very foundations of our church, which already is under heavy attack from all sides" So you likeley have pure power motivation, but for "true believers" it was more, basically attacking the foundations of the one and only true church (this is what "catholic" actually means). So even if what Galilei said sounds true and logical, it cannot be true as it would question the truth of the believe, which is not to be questioned. Therefore the logic must be wrong.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - 77pt77 4y ago
    They knew he probably wasn't wrong and didn't give a shit about it. All they wanted was a way to punish him and going so clearly against "common sense" and orthodoxy was perfect and they used that.
- BoxOfRain 4y ago
  >He just pissed off the Pope and was punished for that, not for any astronomical ideas. It all comes down to politics and power structures in the end.
  - swayvil 4y ago
    It's like social media. Europe was the Pope's subreddit. Don't piss off the moderator. It ain't rational but it's true.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      It's even more like that than you might suspect; the old moderator stepped down (died) and the new one was a friend of Galileo, so he ignored warnings to not shitpost too much, and ate a very moderate "ban".
  - 77pt77 4y ago
    This can't be stressed enough. He most certainly was not punished for any ideas, apart from making fun of the Pope and pissing off other people with power.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

Obligatory Podcast on this : https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/subject-to-change/id1436447503?i=1000536921506 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/subject-to-change/id14... "Subject to change" is a surprisingly great podcast and this is a pretty good episode.