GALILEO APOLOGIZES FOR SILLY THEORY

EARTH-AND-SUN THING A MISUNDERSTANDING

June 22, 1633

Rome

Scientific instrument salesman and part-time professor Galileo Galilei has a hard time keeping his opinions to himself. We can’t quite blame him. He spends so much time by himself in that laboratory of his, concocting offbeat experiments, that when he goes out and about among people, he can’t help but spout off.

His latest theory was- get this- that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

He claimed to believe- even prove (as if such a thing can be proved)- that our planet was spinning in space around the sun.

Talk about a windy ride!

Of course, our wise and noble Pope Urban VIII wanted to talk to him about this, so he invited him to Rome.

Urban and Galileo go way back. As young men they shared many evenings discussing astronomy and other matters. It appears that the pope at first tried to appeal to Galileo as a friend, but the professor, being set in his ways and convinced of the validity of his idea, refused to change his mind.

The Pope did what any pope would do: called a council. There, the evidence against his proposal was put forth and found to be overwhelming. Galileo had no answer, but to renounce his crackpot theory, and agree to never speak of it or publish it ever again.

He said nothing more out loud, but a scribe seated close to the disgraced scientist thought he heard him mutter, in a hoarse voice,  something about moving.

But Seriously…

May 13, 2024

In the cemetery of the Franciscan church of St. Croce, Florence buried three of her renowned sons: Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo.

All three, while they were changing the world, caused headaches for their neighbors.

What do you do with a guy who just doesn’t see things the way everybody else sees them?

The legend- advanced by Florence itself with the help of a nice plaque for tourists- says that the spirit of the dying Michelangelo was reborn in the baby Galileo.

The truth is, the scientist was born three days before the artist died.

According to legend, at the end of his famous showdown with the pope, he uttered, under his breath,

“Eppur si muove.”

Meaning, referring to the Earth, “And yet it moves.”

The probable truth is less satisfying: he meekly accepted his punishment of house-arrest for life.

The legend of Galileo is of a man who gallantly battled the entrenched superstition of the Catholic church.

The truth might make more allowance for the human element:

He was irascible, eager to display the brilliance of his opinions, and delighted in puckish mocking.

He loved saying, “I’m right, you’re wrong.”

Unreasonable

He attacked rivals for pretending to have invented the telescopic uses of astronomy; for being the first to see sun spots; and for claiming to have found Jupiter’s moons.

He complained that they did it “to rob me of that glory which was mine, pretending not to have seen my writings and trying to represent themselves as the original discoverers of these marvels.”

He had an excuse: his mom was a first-class troublemaker. She brought him before the Inquisition for calling her names. (She also stole spectacle lenses from his shop, hired a man to spy on him, and beat on his mistress.)

Like mother, like son. Galileo was good at alienating lesser mortals.

Despite some wise advice from his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, writing from the convent where she lived:

“I beseech you not to grasp the knife of these current troubles and misfortunes by its sharp edge, lest you let it injure you that way, but rather, seizing it by the blunt side, use it to excise all the imperfections you may recognize in yourself; so that you rise above the obstacles.”

Unfortunately for him, but perhaps fortunately for science, he didn’t take her advice. Galileo’s cussedness redounded to society’s advancement.

George Bernard Shaw accounted for this, in his play, “Man and Superman.”

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Sources

Galileo’s Daughter

Galileo, J. L. Heilbron

Galileo’s Mistake, Wade Rowland

The Discoverers, Daniel J. Boorstin