Why Was Galileo Sentenced To Life In Prison? | Genius | Chronicle

[Music] who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when Minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will when we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others in the dark days before his world collapsed and a lifetime's work seemed perilously close to destruction Galileo Galilei wrote these words as a confirmation of all that he believed in they were the basis for the driving conviction that brought him imprisonment at the hands of the merciless holy Office of the Inquisition and to the jaws of torture on trial for his life he lived on a knife edge he lived lived by his passionate beliefs and it was these beliefs that brought him into conflict with the church and made him bitter enemies but with inexhaustible courage even in old age he risked his life risked torture and death for a principle for the truth the Earth moved in space he said and he could prove it the church said that it did not but in the Quest for universal truth Galileo was prepared to take on the devil if need be every age throws forward a mind that sets itself apart a mind that bursts apart the borders of Mankind's perception of the world a mind that is frightening in its Visionary breadth a genius Galileo his Spirit too great for the limited vision of his age was one such [Music] man if I had been free to choose a career I would have become a painter said Galileo in his old age the loss to the art world of so prodigious a talent benefits science to this very day in 1564 the year that gave England Shakespeare Galileo was born in PE in Italy the Cradle of the Renaissance but Galileo was predestined for trouble his father was as argumentative as Galileo was to become the open-minded and Broad education that the young Galileo was given in music literature Art and Science guaranteed that he could never hold his tongue and suffer in silence I think one of the significant things about Galileo is youth was the influence of his father Vincenzo galile now the thing about Vincenzo was that he was very important in the musical revolution of the time and he helped to um uh progress music from medieval pany to more um modern sort of musical structures now the significance of that for Galileo himself was that his father held very strong views about the um uh negative impact of rigid Theory his view was that dogmatic views about how music should be performed um effectively prevented music from developing now if you look at um Galileo's later uh career as a scientist you find that he's trying to present the same exactly the same argument as his father he held quite firmly that rigid views in these case um the views of the aristotel and the Scholastics um well when held dogmatically prevented the development of Science and that was something that I think one could say summarized his whole career as a scientist the way he put himself um in opposition to that kind of dogmatic uh view of science most of his childhood is unrecorded but as a young boy his fascination with mechanics showed that even then his was an inquiring unfettered mind it was this attitude that was to lead later to Triumph and catastrophe under the watchful eye of his father vinchenzo Galileo learned to paint play the loot and write poetry in the dangerous days that awaited him his music and painting provided a great source of comfort the boy Galileo did not go to school for until 1574 when the family moved to Florence the tremendous importance of the Renaissance was a sudden upsurge of interest in knowledge the rediscovery of the works of people such as Plato and renewed interest in the kinds of ideas that people like Plato were putting forward plus developments in music in the Arts and Galileo fits very well into that framework indeed medical school at University in Pisa brought the first rumbles of discontent and tilts against Authority that were to become his Hallmark and downfall there his stormy temperament earned him nothing more than the nickname the Wrangler and it was at Pisa that he first came up against the theories of the Greek philosopher Aristotle that were to dog him at every turn it was the fight to cut out the Dead of Aristotle's theories unquestioned for Centuries by church and state alike that proved his undoing from now on the shadow of Aristotle was to blight his life Galileo never accepted any statement at face value proof by experiment was what he demanded a new and exciting attitude only one episode in his University career pointed to the way the young fire brand was to spend the rest of his life Galileo noticed that a chandelier swinging in the University of patan always had the same length of Swing same time of Swing this is to say it was isochronic which means that the swing from one side to the other took the same amount of time whether the swing was this far or this far it actually only applies with smaller angles but essentially it laid the basis for a way of forming a clock because there was a regular period of time between the one side of the swing and the other no matter however long the swing might be the story itself may or may not be apocryphal but in some ways it stands for uh the kind of science that Galileo is presenting and therefore has has enormous symbolic value and I think it significance lies in two areas in particular the first is that um the the observation itself is um what scientists call counterintuitive in other words it's very unexpected the idea that a pendulum will have the the same period in other words it will take the same length of time to swing no matter how far out it is is a counterintuitive observation so I think that's one element of its significance but far more important I think in terms of the story of Galileo is it's a story about exact mathematical measurement of the world as observed now galileos as as you know was a mathematician he was passionately dedicated to mathematics but it wasn't simply an interest in mathematics as a subject in its own right he believed and he's quoted as having said publicly that the language of nature is written in mathematics so for him mathematics wasn't simply a tool and it wasn't simply an intellectual interest it was some it was the the very script by which we would understand nature so the story of The Swinging chandelier is symbolic of his dedication to the the idea of exact measurement of natural phenomena rather than simple simply um um sitting back and speculating about it as he accused the aristotelians of doing he despised blind adherence to Authority and he found medical studies full of such unthinking obedience as a result he left University in 1585 without a degree true or not the story of the chandelier shows that Galileo was fascinated by measurement and the problems of physics as yet Galileo was an unknown force in the world of science true after leaving University he had immersed himself in mathematics and physics but he needed recognition and a university chair in order to carry out research and take his studies further his frustration grew nevertheless he turned his powers of analysis to the problems of gravity and flotation and began to establish his reputation then in 1588 he was invited to address the Academy of Florence this was the chance he had been praying for and he seized the opportunity greedily preparing himself as he would later do at his trial with razor sharp Clarity and attention to detail he Galileo was ready to challenge the world and surprisingly he did so with tact not a quality for which he was later to be known combining mathematical analysis with a thorough knowledge of modern and ancient literature to deliver a triumphant lecture his reputation was assured soon he had the post he longed for in 1589 the Wrangler now aged 2 was appointed professor of mathematics at his old University Pisa and he would stay true to his name from the new status he had acquired he would swoop down on narrow-minded thought smash the Dead Hand of ignorant Authority his attack started immediately the experiment at the toar of Pisa possibly never happened it's been much debated over the years Aristotle's theory was that bodies fell according to their weight so the heavier the body the faster it would fall G disagreed with this and actually disproved it but he did this mathematically the experiment itself may never have actually taken place but the idea would be that you would drop two equally sized and equally shaped bodies in the same medium IE in this case case air and they would drop at different rates or at the same rate if they dropped at the same rate it would show that Galileo was correct they did drop at the same rate Galileo was correct Galileo's approach to science was Innovative and revolutionary in an age of superstition he was bound to arouse suspicion but in using mathematics to solve the problems of physics and in his geometrical and numerical analysis of the way the world Works he set the pattern for research to the present day yet within this approach lay the seeds of his downfall for in his Treatise on motion written at this time he shows himself open to the thought that the Earth rotates on its own axis from there it was only a small step to accepting and promoting The View first put forward by the Polish astronomer Nichol cernus who had died some 45 years before he had declared that the Earth orbited the Sun and was not the center of the universe the heliocentric Doctrine Aristotle's view exactly the opposite was in line with teachings of the church to defy it meant to face a charge of heresy and to risk the horrible death that this brought in its wake it was the challenge to this view that brought the house down around Galileo's head I think he's important to emphasize um that Galilea was not arguing against Aristotle per se indeed in one of his later pamphlets he explicitly says that he believes that Aristotle had he been alive at the time of Galileo would have subscribed to the Galilean principles that he was expounding both men were committed to the view that in order to understand nature one had to observe nature very carefully but what Galileo was arguing against wasn't Aristotle per se but the aristotelians of his own day people who had taken um Aristotle's theories and turn them into Dogma people who refuse to accept um alternative propositions there is for instance a story of um one of his colleagues at the University a professor who refused to look through Galileo's telescope for fear of what he would see because to this man he knew what the universe was like because Aristotle had told him what it was and he believed it implicitly and saw no further need U to examine it more closely the city of Padua appeared to offer Galileo all that he could desire renowned for its freedoms and Independence of thought it seemed the ideal place for a new beginning and a continuation of his work material success and professional reputation grew side by side now began a time of intense and fruitful work for Galileo lecturing teaching privately and researching and amongst his other achievements I think Galilea can be fairly described as the father of modern mechanics as we currently understand it now the principle of inertia itself is relatively straightforward putting for formal language it states that it is the tendency of a body to remain at rest or in uniform motion until an external force is applied in other words what this means is if an object is stationary it will remain stationary until you apply an external Force so you push it if it's traveling it will travel uniformly in a straight line until an external force is applied to it to alter its directions say if you roll a marble down a hill it'll keep going in a straight line until it meets a bump or a hole and then it'll change its direction now as far as we know this principle was first identified by Galileo and then developed by Newton later on in his first law of motion and still he had energy to develop a workshop for producing scientific instruments and on top of that designing large pieces of equipment himself despite this feverish activity or perhaps because of it Galileo took a mistress the lovely Marina Gamba with whom he lived for 10 years and fathered three children two girls and a boy the youngest girl Maria Celeste was sensitive and gentle and during her life in a Convent carried out a long correspondence with her father one that he valued greatly and which brought him comfort in some of the loneliest and most frightening periods of his life when Galileo left Padua he also amicably left Marina but Galileo was not one to take the path of least resistance if there was no real reason to be restless he would find one and he now wanted to return to Florence besides he was tired of the constant round of teaching in 1609 an object arrived in Italy that was to change Galileo's situation dramatically and completely it flung Galileo into the Wrath of the Inquisition and almost cost him his life the telescope excitement was at fever pitch in Italy although this first telescope was primitive no more than an Innovative toy once in Galileo's hands however it was to to alter the way mankind perceived his world profoundly and irrevocably as soon as he could Galileo got himself a description of the instrument and rushed home to build his first telescope that very night the first written record we have of a telescope comes from 16008 25th of September from the Netherlands it was the Council of Zealand and they had been asked for a patent for what was called a spying class at the time um a week later H lipi applied for a pent for his Looking Glass but it was turned down on account of the fact that these were springing up everywhere and that it was a very simple design in 1609 Galileo himself the first time sometime in July uh saw a telescope it magnified about three times but Galileo was actually able to increase this to 30 times by increasing the focal length and cleaning the tubes again a question not so much of inventing something but seeing the idea and perfecting it absolutely Galileo was very good with his hands the problem with the Dutch telescopes was that they showed things upside down which wasn't so much of a problem for looking at the stars but it was definitely a problem for looking at ships and so on and so forth this was because they had two convex lenses Galileo used a concave lens and a convex lens so the objects itself look the right way up Galileo developed the telescope and he developed it for a very precise reason he wanted to use it for scientific purposes um and specifically to observe the heavens so he needed telescopes which would give him finer resolution and he spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot lot of his own resources um trying to De develop the telescope until um as he claimed he developed one which magnified the the heavens by 2,000 times although I'm not sure whether that's an exaggeration or not um nevertheless because he wanted to observe the heavens and had discovered things about out the heavens that intrigued him then he had an impetus to refine the telescope and I think that it's fair to say that his efforts have um helped the te or helped the telescope to develop into quite a precise instrument the opportunity for Galileo to make his next step forward was not long in coming when the Senate was considering whether or not to buy one of these new instruments Galileo immediately offered to make a better one to his Joy the Senate agreed to wait and see what he could come up with Galileo set to work immediately using the best Venetian glass for the lenses testing and rejecting time and time again struggling with the problems of distortion and magnification until by late August he had a telescope that he was sure would enhance his reputation it could magnify nine times when he presented it to the Senate success was instantaneous and resulted in him being awarded the chair of mathematics at Padua University for life together with a salary of 1,000 Florin a year the popular view of Galileo is dropping balls off the Tower of Pisa I think the intellectual view of Galileo is as a giant a man that championed the freedom of inquiry and who championed exact measurement of natural phenomena this was just the beginning Galileo turned his whole Workshop over to the production of telescopes in the attempt to make the magnification even better inevitably it was only a short time before he succeeded and had a magnification of 30 times it was this telescope that he turned excitedly towards the heavens what Galileo saw through his telescope astounded him the skies opened up their secrets and wonders with every new discovery evidence for a moving Earth was presented to him but the sights themselves were breathtaking to the 17th century observer in his small volume called The Starry Messenger Galileo wrote it is the most beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon about 30 times larger and one may know with certainty that it is due to the use of our senses that the moon certainly does not possess a smooth and Polished surface it is rough and uneven just like the surface of the Earth itself is everywhere full of vast protuberances deep chasms lofty mountains and deep valleys Aristotle had claimed otherwise the discoveries flooded in the Milky Way was found to be a collection of stars there were stars never seen before so numerous said Galileo as to be almost beyond belief and then he found that the four satellite planets of Jupiter were in fact in orbit around it another nail was about to be hammered into the coffin of Aristotelian theory in Aristotle's Universe there was only one sent motion this was the earth everything else either revolved around the earth fell to Earth or was pushed away from Earth the discovery of the moons around Jupiter meant showed there were two senses of motion this was more in keeping with certainly either tonic but also cernan systems the universe whereby the moon would revolve around the Earth and the Earth would revolve around the sun this was two senses of motion if you have two senses of motion there's no reason why you shouldn't have three and so the in the discovery of the moons around Jupiter although they don't conclusively prove that the the Earth went round the sun almost took away the reason why one should not believe it that there was only one Center of motion when Galileo first observed the moons of Jupiter he was astonished um at first he thought he was he was observing fixed stars but when he looked again he noticed that those fixed Stars had moved and he spent some time looking at their movement and realized that they were rotating around Jupiter now he never got around to um observing and recording the rotations of the moons precisely and he suggested in one of his pamphlets The Starry Messenger that other astronomers should do that but what he did suggest was that there in Jupiter with its moons orbiting around it was a small model of the solar system as he conceived it within this case the Jupiter taking the part of the sun and the moons taking the part of the planets in in particular the Earth Aristotle was wrong Galileo knew it and he was not afraid to pronounce it to the world he did so with the publication of the story messenger it was a bestseller and went into second edition within months Galileo was famous overnight his dream come true yet successful Galileo was no more content than he had been as an unknown mathem ician not with a huge increase in salary or the title of philosopher and mathematician to the Grand Duke and all Europe talking about him he resigned his post at Padua and returned to Florence almost immediately his studies of the night sky led him to the discovery that Venus must be orbiting the Sun and not the Earth thus adding more weight to the cernic theory of a moving Earth as Galileo became more open and confident his enemies became more irate and determined to squash the upstart astronomer unaware that a storm of unbounded ferocity was about to break over him Galileo went to Rome to persuade the Catholic order of Jesuits of the truth of his observations in this he was completely successful he was well received by the Pope fad wherever he went had his new instrument renamed as a telescope and returned to Florence Boyd with his good fortune in Florence his detractors had gathered around an arrogant academic named ludovico DEA colombe and their plan was simple to let Galileo's defense of his own iconoclastic views do the damage for them gal was a very arrogant man he was very proud this led him into trouble throughout his life essentially he spent almost all of his life uh defending himself against his perceived critics and people who he said had taken away his ideas he was dedicated scientist he believed in the power of exact measurement and that's what drove him he was systematic he was careful he was imaginative and I think when he was confronted by dog ISM and ignorance which from his view interfered with the progress of science I think he became very irritated and quite courageous slowly they pushed Galileo towards his fate there were violent arguments about whether shape was the deciding factor in keeping an object afloat and Galileo fell victim to his own fiery character and inability to put up with fools he began to expostulate theories that were wildly inaccurate ranting about fire atoms that could pass through solid matter this vitriolic side to Galileo was what many hoped would prove his undoing they were wrong and it was only by corrupt underhand means that they could finally trap him the rupture came with the discovery by the German Jesuit father Kristoff Shiner of mysterious sunspots black clusters of spots on the sun's surface when Galileo asserted probably rightly that he had observed them first he tipped himself into a controversy as hot as the son itself some he said had attempted to rob me of that Glory which was mine by pretending not to have seen my writings and subsequently trying to to make themselves the original discoverers of such impressive marbles Shiner was enraged by the accusation typically Galileo entered the fry as only he knew how with all guns firing ludovico de colombe set the Trap and waited for Galileo to take the bait it was done with one question is a moving Earth contrary to the scriptures now too late Galileo saw the Flaming sword that guarded the church's Authority turned towards him for a short time turning the tables once again he reigned in his anger and with searing intelligence took the wind out of Columbus sails with a brilliantly crafted letter in his defense the Bible he said should not be used by one philosophical school to beat another over the [Music] head in December 1614 the black cloud burst with a ferocity that not even Galileo's delighted enemies could have foreseen a Dominican Tomaso cachini stood before his congregation and preached that mathematics was the work of the devil and that mathematicians should be banned from Christian countries ideas of a moving Earth proclaimed cachini were tentant to heresy and the punishment for heresy was to be burned alive at the stake Galileo's ideas were no longer safe to hold everyone knew of the Dominican gordano Bruno who had insisted on holding to the cernic theory of a static son he had been denounced to the Inquisition probably tortured and burned alive at the stake such was the punishment for heresy it was not in Galileo's nature to stand idly by and allow the world to be jolted backwards by the rancorous Outburst of one priest yet the Dominicans were close to the holy Office of the Inquisition how could he turn the sword from his throat and retain his scient ific Integrity he began to feel afraid in 1615 Galileo was summoned to appear before the Pope in Rome cernus book expounding the heliocentric theory had been suspended for correction a term which meant that the sections considered heretical were to be removed Galileo was to be brought before the pope and warned that he should abandon the theory aware that failure to do so meant a condemnation by the Inquisition Galileo determined to go through with the meeting accept the warning and then forth check his temper and wait for a more opportune time to push his beliefs forward this was not enough for Galileo's enemies who wanted him not just silenced but out of action for good adversaries in high office did what all corrupt authorities do almost fatally for Galileo they forged the document recording the meeting with the Pope and placed it in the Vatican archives later it was to lead him to within a hair's bread of the [Music] Flames Galileo the document now recorded had been commanded to relinquish all together the said opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves nor further to hold teach or defend it in any way whatsoever verbally or in writing as far as Galileo was concerned however the poisoned cup had passed and he turned to scientific experiments once more his interest in Optics led him to the invention of the microscope and he was preoccupied with measuring the speed acceleration of falling objects but the controversy rumbled on he could not keep his mouth shut when he was challenged and in his writings he was unbeatable a master of Pros satirical clear and as sharp as a razor blade when Galileo's friend MAFO babini became Pope Urban VII the future looked full of promise but how deceived he was in this view Galileo was soon to find out in 1632 when Galileo was in his mid 60s the dialogue of the two great World Systems a three-handed discussion on all the points Galileo wished to Champion was finished it was an attempt to bring his theory of a moving Earth back in Triumph and it was a masterpiece for Galileo the existence of Tides was the evidence he was looking for to demonstrate that the Universe really was capernum that the Earth moved and the sun was stationary um as it happens his theory was completely wrong uh but nevertheless he believed that he had the evidence that he needed in essence Galileo's theory was that as the Earth rotated it created zones of acceleration and deceleration which affected the oceans and therefore created the tides now he argued by analogy if you take a bowl of water for example and move it backwards and forwards you get an effect which is entirely like Tides you get the the large swells and the water or the liquid moving to one side then moving to another Now by analogy Galileo claimed that the movement of the Earth was creating similar forces to those in the bowl of water as you move it backwards and forwards and that this accounted for the tides ironically um he rejected what we now consider to be one of the um the real theories of the tides by rejecting the influence of the Moon and he did that because he was an opponent of astrology and to him the influence of the moon on the tides which had been claimed as long ago as the time of Aristotle himself to galile it smacked of astrology and occult forces which he would have no truck with because um that was not in his the spirit of observational science for which he was standing Galileo had miscalculated badly and brought the roof about his own head Pope Urban was furious at this openly defiant act the Jesuits releasing years of resentment did all that they could to stoke his anger the book was suspended and underwent an examination when Galileo received the result he was perhaps naively totally dumbfounded the dialogue was deemed to be unacceptable to the church but worse was to follow Urban called in the Inquisition Galileo's situation had become deadly serious Galileo was in a State of Shock when The Inquisitor at Florence called at his house with a formal summons it demanded Ed that he present himself at Rome within 30 days to answer charges that were to be brought against him then came the news he had feared Galileo was to be put on trial for heresy in Rome there followed a series of hearings and interrogations that were to test Galileo's beliefs and intelligence to the full as before ill as he was he argued with skill and Brilliance to try and outmaneuver his detractors but this episode was to bring him to his knees this was no time for satirical Pros he was fighting for his life for his honor for the truth from The Archives of the Vatican came the forged document commanding him not to hold teach or defend the capern theory in any way way Galileo protested that the document did not portray the facts correctly but it was a useless effort the dialogues clearly went against the instruction there was no way out the Inquisition was not squeamish they knew how to make people confess they would keep looking for a weakness unless he admitted guilt friends begged Galileo to plead guilty swallow pride and vanity admit to having forgotten about being told to drop the theory of a moving Earth and stay alive his life rested in his own hands how would he decide there's been a lot of exaggeration about the Inquisition now I personally wouldn't want to defend it as an institution but when the inquisitors attempt to extract confessions from people I think that the evidence suggests fairly strongly that their favored method was simply to tire out the people that they questioning they would keep them up they would deprive them of sleep they would fire questions at them to break down their resistance um a technique incidentally which is used by security forces the world over in the 20th century um so I don't think that the idea of um using these horrible instruments of torture is necessarily accurate and I certainly don't think that they is those kind of uh methods with Galileo because again we've got to remember that Galileo was the friend of popes and the friend of Bishops there was no chance of arguing his case Galileo had a Clear Choice was Truth worth dying for should he endure imprisonment torture and being burnt at the stake for his scientific beliefs should he sacrifice himself for the principles that he knew to be right did he after all possess the courage for scientific [Music] martyrdom with the Flames dancing in his Mind's Eye and the screams of other Heretics ringing in his memory Galileo appeared once more before the commissionary general of the Inquisition and his assistants the proud arrogant Seeker for truth was forced to confess his alleged sin his humiliation was complete my error then has been I confess it one of vain glorious ambition and pure ignorance and inadvertence and in confirmation of my assertion that I have not held and do not hold as true the opinion which has been condemned of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun if there shall be granted to me as I desire the means and time to make a clear demonstration thereof I am ready to do so having confessed Galileo now hoped for a mild sentence but his Ur while friend the pope wanted Vengeance he wanted to destroy Galileo the sentence was harsh on his knees he waited an old and broken man trembling in fear beneath the long robe his prison sentence was confirmed as was the Banning of his book then came the hardest part of all for the proud genius I Galileo son of the late vinchenzo galile I Florentine age 70 years have been pronounced by the holy office to be vehemently suspected of heresy that is to say of having held and believed that the son is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth is not the center and moves with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure curse and detest the afores said errors and heresies stupidity fear the greatest enemies of Truth had triumphed the scientific movement in Italy crashed to a standstill the relief when he was allowed to return to Florence and not imprisoned after all was marred by another bitter blow to the old man his beloved daughter Maria Celeste whose daily correspondence had always comforted him died in the spring of the following year Galileo was heartbroken it seemed he wished for nothing more than to join his daughter in death but Galileo's fighting Spirit could could not be crushed within a short time a visitor wrote that Galileo and his friend a man called Piccolo mini were spreading papers all over the floor with such excitement that one could not weary of admiration at the age of 69 he published discourses and mathematical demonstrations concerning two new Sciences far from being broken he was once again on the attack with Aristotle as The Whipping Boy it was another brilliant work touching on his favorite topic of motion and acceleration engineering and the philosophy of science one phrase any velocity once imparted to a moving body will be rigidly maintained remains one of the foundation stones of physics to this day proving how advanced Galileo was in his thinking but finally when his eyesight failed and he became blind he could no longer continue his experiments having lived long enough for the construction of his Satellite computer to be concluded with which he intended to Mark the past and future position of the planets the bright light of his piercing abrasive genius flickered and was extinguished Galileo the scour of the narrow-minded and ignorant died in 1642 gal's main Legacy was as part of the 16th century and 17th century Scientific Revolution whereby he was one of the people to join natural philosophy to mathematics and take it out of the sphere of the aristotelians working in universities and just purely working off uh a reverence for Aristotle and using knowledge so to speak that was a thousand years old and completely irrelevant the to the modern world Galo himself was an empiricist he could prove things by looking at the real world and this sets in a whole new era in science leads up to Newton indeed leads to all the scientific discoveries of the present day the importance of his work the principles he established in mathematics and mechanics that affect our lives today is acknowledged now some 440 Years Later by the American space agency NASA as the Galileo space probe pushes ever wider the borders of scientific knowledge just as he did although many people have said that Galileo uh didn't invent anything himself and this is quite true and that most of his greatest work was actually just an expansion of other people's work one couldn't possibly say that he wasn't a genius the the man had a phenomenal Talent of self- publicity could always see the actual practical uses of all the abstract science that he was involved in now whether this was just a product of the Renaissance is is a different matter uh it has to be said that uh at another time Galileo wouldn't have been so fortunate with his with his sponsoring by the medich family and with the amount of money he got and that also he wouldn't have been able to make the move from mathematician to Natural philosopher however one would have to say that really Galileo was a genius Beyond his time and that a lot of the things he invented and a lot of his insights were 60 or 70 years before his time I think he was a giant thinker I think he was one of the the Giants of the intellectual Renaissance and I think he was a giant of modern science and although the forces of ignorance have the power to wreck a terrible Vengeance on those who dare to stand in their path Galileo Galilei an artist a musician a philosopher pher a mathematician but above all a Pioneer and rebel dared to stand and face everyone in pursuit of the truth we owe him a debt that can never be [Music] repaid [Music] oh

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

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Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 20 2024