History of Science Online - Course Info - Time tips - Semester Schedule - Weekly Assignments - Timeline - Projects - Week 13: 17th Century - Galileo

Reading 1: Background

The background reading for this week is the Galileo group of exhibits found on the Exhibits Online website, available in video form or as text with thumbnails. A few scientists, including Galileo, Newton and Einstein, have become mythological figures in our culture. This means that to understand them in historical context may take some extra effort. Please engage the exhibits carefully, and think about the contrast between the historical Galileo and the mythological Galileo (e.g., the leaning tower of Pisa).

1. Text with thumbnails: The Works of Galileo.
   Video: Instead of reading the exhibits listed at that link, consider watching the video. Video is preferable if you have broadband because it integrates the visuals with the explanations and descriptions in a much more efficient and interesting way. Feel free to skip the Q&A section at the end of the video. You may choose between three formats:
   1. Streaming Video (QuickTime)
   2. Non-Streaming Video (mp4) (does not work well with Internet Explorer; use Firefox or Safari instead)
   3. Download m4v video optimized for iPhone, iPod touch, or iTunes (535MB)
       
2. "Timeline and Readers Guide" (pdf). Please download this timeline and keep it handy as you watch the video or view the exhibits.

Galileo is a wonderful writer, and I have sprinkled many quotations from his works throughout these exhibits and in the timeline. I hope you find them enjoyable. If you would like to read him for yourself, you will find that the timeline handout contains citations to recommended English translations of all his works. The timeline and the exhibits are derived from invited talks I have presented to astronomers and physicists at Fermilab, Florida State University, New Mexico State University, Michigan State University, and other places. The video version was recorded at a presentation to NASA engineers at Langley, VA, in July 2008.

The scholarship on Galileo is prodigious, and takes years to encompass. So where might you turn next? If I were to recommend just one book about Galileo, it would be Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter (Penguin, 2000). So if the assigned readings stir up your interest in Galileo, try Sobel's book. Put it on your Amazon wishlist. (Other recommended sources are listed in the More Info section at Exhibits Online.) Sobel's book was also the basis for a special 2-hour edition of NOVA that aired in October, 2002, but still can be found in late-night reruns: Galileo's Battle for the Heavens. If you get a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it. By the way, every image from a book that appears in that film is from the OU History of Science Collections; many are the same images that appear in the exhibits you will read this week. As you will discover, the OU Galileo collection is world-famous.

READING 1 QUIZ: The statements are either True or False. When you take the quiz at Desire2Learn, you will see 15 of these statements, chosen at random. You can take the quiz a total of two times, up until the due date, when the quiz will no longer be available. If you take the quiz a second time, your first attempt will be erased and your second attempt will be recorded. You will find the quiz in the Quizzes section of Desire2Learn.

1. T or F? Galileo thought that physics should be qualitative.
2. T or F? Archimedes and Ptolemy represent non-mathematical varieties of Aristotelian physics.
3. T or F? Galileo and his mistress had a daughter during the time Galileo taught mathematics at Padua, in the Republic of Venice.
4. T or F? Galileo’s first published book was a manual for the operation of a calculating instrument he had invented.
5. T or F? Galileo’s second published book was a defense of his compass in the face of attempted plagiarism.
6. T or F? Galileo invented the telescope.
7. T or F? Galileo used the telescope to begin mapping the Moon, including a large, prominent crater that he named after himself.
8. T or F? Galileo argued that the Moon and Earth are similar in that both have mountains, oceans, an atmosphere, and shine by reflected light.
9. T or F? Through Galileo’s telescope, bright stars appeared much larger than faint stars.
10. T or F? Galileo’s telescopic discoveries showed that the absence of stellar parallax was no longer a valid objection to Copernicus.
11. T or F? Galileo’s telescopic discoveries proved that multiple centers of revolution must exist in the solar system.
12. T or F? Galileo’s telescopic discoveries proved that a moving Earth would not necessarily leave its satellite (the Moon) behind.
13. T or F? Galileo named the four moons of Jupiter after himself, the so-called Galileian Moons.
14. T or F? After publication of the Sidereus nuncius (1610), Galileo faced intense opposition from the mathematicians and astronomers in Rome.
15. T or F? Mathematicians and astronomers in Rome refused to look through Galileo’s telescope.
16. T or F? Galileo founded the Academy of the Lynx to provide support for his scientific investigations.
17. T or F? Archimedes’ work on floating bodies was a favorite treatise of university physicists.
18. T or F? Galileo argued that sunspots are little planets that revolve around the Sun at a closer distance than Mercury.
19. T or F? In Rosa Ursina, Christoph Scheiner argued that sunspots are little planets that revolve around the Sun.
20. T or F? A Dominican priest named Caccini attacked Galileo and Copernicanism in Florence as contrary to Scripture.
21. T or F? Galileo wrote a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, which circulated in manuscript, in which he defended Copernicanism as not contrary to the figurative language of Scipture.
22. T or F? In 1616, the Congregation of the Index censured Galileo and pronounced Copernicanism as heretical and erroneous in the faith.
23. T or F? In 1620, the De Revolutionibus of Copernicus was prohibited so that Catholics thereafter were forbidden to discuss it in any manner.
24. T or F? In the 1616 conference with Galileo, Cardinal Bellarmine was instructed to follow three steps: admonition, injunction, imprisonment.
25. T or F? Cardinal Bellarmine implied that only the first step was carried out.
26. T or F? An irregular document found in Galileo’s file at the Inquisition indicated that Galileo at first refused to acquiesce and was issued an injunction; this alleged injunction became the legal basis for Galileo’s later trial.
27. T or F? In 1623, Galileo was on generally friendly terms with the new pope Urban VIII.
28. T or F? In the Assayer, Galileo argued from parallax that comets move above the Moon.
29. T or F? Members of the Academy of the Lynx published the first report of microscopic discoveries, dedicated to the new pope.
30. T or F? Galileo obtained Pope Urban VIII’s permission to write a book presenting evidence for Copernicanism hypothetically.
31. T or F? In the Dialogue (1632), the fictional character Simplicio defends Copernicus.
32. T or F? The Dialogue presented important arguments for Copernicus from astronomy in an entertaining and persuasive manner.
33. T or F? Galileo offered a causal (not mathematical) argument for the physical truth (not hypothetical possibility) of Copernicanism based on the motion of the tides.
34. T or F? In 1633, Galileo was sentenced as one vehemently suspected of heresy for writing the Dialogue, and he abjured Copernicanism before the College of Cardinals.
35. T or F? After his sentence, Galileo was imprisoned in Rome, and occasionally tortured for the remainder of his life.
36. T or F? Galileo’s Discourse on Two New Sciences was written in dialogue form.
37. T or F? Galileo’s Discourse on Two New Sciences presents the law of falling bodies, that the distances traveled by a falling body increase as the square of the times.
38. T or F? Galileo argued that without the experimental method, it would have been impossible to deduce the law of falling bodies.

	HSCI 3013. History of Science to 17th century Kerry Magruder, 2004-08 Report typos or broken links Many thanks to Mythology and Folklore and other online courses developed by Laura Gibbs.	Search course websites:
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