Galileo's Mathematical-Experimental Method
Gabriel Glasser
Professor Damnjanovic
December 3, 2012
The Unveiling of the Heavens In summer of 1609, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) pointed his revolutionary astronomical telescope to the heavens under the starry Venetian sky; his greatly important observations unveiled the mysteries of universe and would end up changing the course of scientific thought forever. Galileo lived in an age where there was much status quo, when scientists and philosophers would accept scientific and religious doctrine that had stood for hundreds, if not thousands, of years instead of challenging the accepted knowledge in favor of intellectual progress. Galileo’s scientific methods lead to significant discoveries explaining key scientific laws, such as the orientation of the universe, the motion of free falling bodies, and the Galilean principle of relativity. Galileo’s equal interest in a diversity of studies from the largest of celestial bodies to the motion of minuscule free falling pebbles and water droplets upon a ship show his immense scientific interest and his discoveries cannot be overstated as he has been widely accredited as the founder of a new rational science. The science of antiquity which scholars were taught in Galileo’s time was an amalgamation of religious doctrine and Aristotelian philosophy reinterpreted to match with the teachings of the church. As a result, there was little scientific advancement. The scientific knowledge that was accepted was greatly influenced by the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275), a religious scholar who studied the writings of Aristotle and interpreted them in a religious context. An important belief of Aristotle’s study of astronomy was motion by an “unmoved divine mover,” which sustained the observable motion of the celestial bodies. Aquinas interpreted Aristotle’s passage with the mover being God and the planetary motions done by angels. The important themes to Aquinas’s astronomical philosophies were his beliefs that the
Professor Damnjanovic
December 3, 2012
The Unveiling of the Heavens In summer of 1609, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) pointed his revolutionary astronomical telescope to the heavens under the starry Venetian sky; his greatly important observations unveiled the mysteries of universe and would end up changing the course of scientific thought forever. Galileo lived in an age where there was much status quo, when scientists and philosophers would accept scientific and religious doctrine that had stood for hundreds, if not thousands, of years instead of challenging the accepted knowledge in favor of intellectual progress. Galileo’s scientific methods lead to significant discoveries explaining key scientific laws, such as the orientation of the universe, the motion of free falling bodies, and the Galilean principle of relativity. Galileo’s equal interest in a diversity of studies from the largest of celestial bodies to the motion of minuscule free falling pebbles and water droplets upon a ship show his immense scientific interest and his discoveries cannot be overstated as he has been widely accredited as the founder of a new rational science. The science of antiquity which scholars were taught in Galileo’s time was an amalgamation of religious doctrine and Aristotelian philosophy reinterpreted to match with the teachings of the church. As a result, there was little scientific advancement. The scientific knowledge that was accepted was greatly influenced by the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275), a religious scholar who studied the writings of Aristotle and interpreted them in a religious context. An important belief of Aristotle’s study of astronomy was motion by an “unmoved divine mover,” which sustained the observable motion of the celestial bodies. Aquinas interpreted Aristotle’s passage with the mover being God and the planetary motions done by angels. The important themes to Aquinas’s astronomical philosophies were his beliefs that the
Cited: Cohen, L B. The Birth of a New Physics. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1985. Print. Frova, A, and M Marenzana. Thus Spoke Galileo. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.