Galileo Observation
Zac O’Neal
Honors IT 03
Throughout the readings that we have completed so far this semester, I have had a number of things surprise me. I would have to say that the thing that I encountered that surprised me most came about while reading about many of these big name historical figures’ lifes. With Descartes, reading about his work with fencing and about his life decisions, such as the decision to become a philosopher, which was a step down on the social ladder for him, or his time in Holland was fascinating. However, the thing that probably took me back most was reading about the more social aspect of Galileo life. The reason that the social aspect of Galileo’s life surprised me so much was that I never really thought of any of these big …show more content…
The obvious assumptions that I held before reading the piece included that I would just be reading the step-by-step development of the telescope; I assumed that the test would be the standard stuff about how Galileo had always had such a fascination with lenses and how that lead to everything that followed happening. I also held belief that Galileo lived a fairly simple life. These are obviously false after doing the reading, and now thinking about it, are just very stupid assumptions to hold in general. Galileo, instead of this simplistic, two dimensional character, is someone who did indeed live a very real life. Another assumption that I held before reading the texts on Galileo was that fairly soon after he released the information that he had discovered, the discoveries would at least be put up open to a decently honest discussion. I was extremely surprised to find that the work he released met with such serious backlash from so many. Reading about the politics surrounding what I would now consider to be such a simple change as accepting the Copernican system and that the moon was indeed not a perfect sphere was extremely surprising to me. The rapid change in the role of the Catholic church, the development of the protestant movement, and the change in ruler after Cosimo died was very interesting as it breathed life and fluidity into a time that I had previously held to be relatively
Honors IT 03
Throughout the readings that we have completed so far this semester, I have had a number of things surprise me. I would have to say that the thing that I encountered that surprised me most came about while reading about many of these big name historical figures’ lifes. With Descartes, reading about his work with fencing and about his life decisions, such as the decision to become a philosopher, which was a step down on the social ladder for him, or his time in Holland was fascinating. However, the thing that probably took me back most was reading about the more social aspect of Galileo life. The reason that the social aspect of Galileo’s life surprised me so much was that I never really thought of any of these big …show more content…
The obvious assumptions that I held before reading the piece included that I would just be reading the step-by-step development of the telescope; I assumed that the test would be the standard stuff about how Galileo had always had such a fascination with lenses and how that lead to everything that followed happening. I also held belief that Galileo lived a fairly simple life. These are obviously false after doing the reading, and now thinking about it, are just very stupid assumptions to hold in general. Galileo, instead of this simplistic, two dimensional character, is someone who did indeed live a very real life. Another assumption that I held before reading the texts on Galileo was that fairly soon after he released the information that he had discovered, the discoveries would at least be put up open to a decently honest discussion. I was extremely surprised to find that the work he released met with such serious backlash from so many. Reading about the politics surrounding what I would now consider to be such a simple change as accepting the Copernican system and that the moon was indeed not a perfect sphere was extremely surprising to me. The rapid change in the role of the Catholic church, the development of the protestant movement, and the change in ruler after Cosimo died was very interesting as it breathed life and fluidity into a time that I had previously held to be relatively