Galileo Galilei and his discoveries in physics. Galileo Galilei - biography, discoveries

Galileo Galilei a brief biography of the Italian physicist, mechanic, astronomer, and philosopher is presented in this article.

Galileo Galilei biography briefly

Born on February 15, 1564 in the Italian city of Pisa in the family of a well-born but impoverished nobleman. From the age of 11 he was brought up in the Vallombrosa monastery. At the age of 17 he left the monastery and entered the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Pisa. He became a university professor and later headed the department of mathematics at the University of Padua, where over the course of 18 years he created a series of outstanding works on mathematics and mechanics.

He soon became the most famous lecturer at the university, and students lined up to attend his classes. It was at this time that he wrote the treatise “Mechanics”.

Galileo described his first discoveries with a telescope in his work “The Starry Messenger”. The book was a sensational success. He built a telescope that magnifies objects three times, placed it on the tower of San Marco in Venice, allowing everyone to look at the Moon and stars.

Following this, he invented a telescope that increased its power 11 times compared to the first. He described his observations in the work “Starry Messenger”.

In 1637, the scientist lost his sight. Until this time he had been hard at work on his latest book, Discourses and Mathematical Proofs Concerning Two New Branches of Science Relating to Mechanics and Local Motion. In this work he summarized all his observations and achievements in the field of mechanics.

Galileo's teaching about the structure of the world contradicted the Holy Scriptures, and the scientist was persecuted by the Inquisition for a long time. I promote the theories of Copernicus, he fell out of favor with the Catholic Church forever. He was captured by the Inquisition and, under threat of death at the stake, renounced his views. He was forever prohibited from writing or distributing his work in any way.

He receives a very good musical education. When he was ten years old, his family moved to his father's hometown of Florence, and then Galileo was sent to school in a Benedictine monastery. There, for four years, he studied the usual medieval disciplines with the scholastics.

Vincenzo Galilei chooses an honorable and profitable profession as a doctor for his son. In 1581, seventeen-year-old Galileo was enrolled as a student at the University of Piraeus in the Faculty of Medicine and Philosophy. But the state of medical science at that time filled him with dissatisfaction and pushed him away from a medical career. At that time, he happened to attend a lecture on mathematics by Ostillo Ricci, a friend of his family, and was amazed at the logic and beauty of Euclid's geometry.

He immediately studied the works of Euclid and Archimedes. His stay at the university becomes more and more unbearable. After spending four years there, Galileo left it shortly before completion and returned to Florence. There he continued his studies under the guidance of Ritchie, who appreciated the extraordinary abilities of the young Galileo. In addition to purely mathematical questions, he became acquainted with technical achievements. He studies ancient philosophers and modern writers and in a short time acquires the knowledge of a serious scientist.

Discoveries of Galileo Galilei

Law of pendulum motion

Studying in Pisa with his powers of observation and keen intelligence, he discovers the law of motion of the pendulum (the period depends only on the length, not on the amplitude or weight of the pendulum). Later he proposes the design of a device with a pendulum for measuring at regular intervals. In 1586, Galileo completed his first solo study of hydrostatic equilibrium and constructed a new type of hydrostatic balance. The following year he wrote a purely geometric work, Theorems of a Rigid Body.

Galileo's first treatises were not published, but quickly spread and came to the fore. In 1588, commissioned by the Florentine Academy, he gave two lectures on the form, position and extent of Dante's Hell. They are filled with mechanical theorems and numerous geometric proofs, and are used as a pretext for the development of geography and ideas for the whole world. In 1589, the Grand Duke of Tuscany appointed Galileo as professor in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Pisa.

In Pisa, a young scientist again encounters educational medieval science. Galileo must learn the geocentric system of Ptolemy, which, along with the philosophy of Aristotle, adapted to the needs of the church, is accepted. He does not interact with his colleagues, argues with them, and initially doubts many of Aristotle's claims about physics.

The first scientific experiment in physics

According to him, the movement of the Earth's bodies is divided into “natural”, when they tend to their “natural places” (for example, downward movement for heavy bodies and “upward” movement) and “violent” movement. The movement stops when the cause disappears. “Perfect celestial bodies” are eternal motion in perfect circles around the center of the Earth (and the center of the world). To refute Aristotle's assertions that bodies fall at a speed proportional to their weights, Galileo made his famous experiments with bodies falling from the leaning tower at Pisa.

This is actually the first scientific experiment in physics and with it Galileo introduces a new method of acquiring knowledge - from experience and observation. The result of these studies is the treatise “Falling Bodies,” which sets out the main conclusion about the independence of speed from the weight of a falling body. It is written in a new style for scientific literature - in the form of a dialogue, which reveals the main conclusion about the speed that does not depend on the weight of the falling body.

The lack of a scientific base and low pay force Galie to leave the University of Pisa before the expiration of his three-year contract. At that time, after his father died, he had to take over the family. Galileo is invited to take up the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua. The University of Padua was one of the oldest in Europe and was renowned for its spirit of freedom of thought and independence from the clergy. Here Galileo worked and quickly made a name for himself as an excellent physicist and a very good engineer. In 1593, his first two works were completed, as well as “Mechanics”, in which he outlined his views on the theory of simple machines, invented proportions with which it is easy to perform various geometric operations - enlarging a drawing, etc. His patents for hydraulic equipment also preserved.
Galileo's lectures at the university voiced official views, he taught geometry, Ptolemy's geocentric system and Aristotle's physics.

Introduction to the teachings of Copernicus

At the same time, at home, among friends and students, he talks about various problems and expounds his own new views. This duality of life Galileo is forced to lead for a long time until he becomes convinced of his ideas in the public space. It is believed that while still in Pisa, Galileo became acquainted with the teachings of Copernicus. In Padua he is already a convinced supporter of the heliocentric system and has as his main goal the collection of evidence in its favor. In a letter to Kepler in 1597 he wrote:

“Many years ago I turned to the ideas of Copernicus and with my theory I was able to completely explain a number of phenomena that generally could not be explained by opposing theories. I have come up with many arguments that refute opposing ideas."

Galilean pipe

At the end of 1608, news reaches Galilee that an optical device has been discovered in the Netherlands that allows one to see distant objects. Galileo, after hard work and processing hundreds of pieces of optical glass, built his first telescope with triple magnification. This is a system of lenses (eyepieces) now called the Galilean tube. His third telescope, with 32x magnification, looks at the sky.

Only after several months of observation, he published amazing discoveries in a book:
The Moon is not perfectly spherical and smooth, its surface is covered with hills and depressions similar to the Earth.
The Milky Way is a collection of numerous stars.
The planet Jupiter has four satellites that orbit around it like the Moon around the Earth.

Despite the fact that the book is allowed to be printed, this book actually contains a serious blow to Christian dogmas - the principle of the difference between “imperfect” earthly bodies and “perfect, eternal and unchangeable” celestial bodies is destroyed.

The motion of Jupiter's moons has been used as an argument for the Copernican system. Galileo's first bold astronomical achievements did not attract the attention of the Inquisition; on the contrary, they brought him enormous popularity and influence as a renowned scientist throughout Italy, including among the clergy.

In 1610, Galileo was appointed "first mathematician and philosopher" in the court of the ruler of Tuscany and his former student Cosimo II de' Medici. He leaves the University of Padua after 18 years of residence there and moves to Florence, where he is freed from any academic work and can concentrate only on his research.

The arguments in favor of the Copernican system were soon supplemented by the discovery of the phases of Venus, the observation of Saturn's rings and sunspots. He visited Rome, where he was greeted by the cardinals and the pope. Galileo hopes that the logical perfection and experimental justification of the new science will force the church to recognize this. In 1612, his important work “Reflections on Floating Bodies” was published. In it, he gives new evidence for Archimedes' law and opposes many aspects of scholastic philosophy, asserting the right of reason not to obey authorities. In 1613, he wrote a treatise on sunspots in Italian with great literary talent. At that time he also almost discovered the rotation of the Sun.

Prohibition of the teachings of Copernicus

Since the first attacks had already been made on Galileo and his students, he felt the need to speak and write his famous letter to Castelli. He proclaimed the independence of science from theology and the uselessness of Scripture in the research of scientists: “... in mathematical disputes, it seems to me that the Bible belongs to the last place.” But the spread of opinions about the heliocentric system seriously worried theologians and in March 1616, with a decree of the Holy Congregation, the teachings of Copernicus were prohibited.

For the entire active community of Copernicus supporters, many years of silence begin. But the system becomes obvious only when in 1610-1616. The main weapon against the geocentric system was astronomical discoveries. Now Galileo strikes at the very foundations of the old, unscientific worldview, affecting the deepest physical roots of the world. The struggle resumed with the appearance in 1624 of two works, including “Letter to Ingoli.” In this work, Galileo expounds the principle of relativity. The traditional argument against the Earth's motion is discussed, namely that if the Earth were rotating, a stone thrown from a tower would lag behind the Earth's surface.

Dialogue on the two main systems of the world – Ptolemy and Copernicus

In the following years, Galileo was immersed in work on a major book that reflected the results of his 30 years of research and reflection, the experience gained in applied mechanics and astronomy, and his general philosophical views on the world. In 1630, an extensive manuscript entitled “Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemy and Copernicus” was completed.

The exposition of the book was structured in the form of a conversation between three people: Salviatti, a convinced supporter of Copernicus and the new philosophy; Sagredo, who is a wise man and agrees with all of Salviatti's arguments, but is initially neutral; and Simplicchio, a defender of the traditional Aristotelian concept. The names Salviatti and Sagredo were given to two of Galileo's friends, while Simplicio was named after Aristotle's famous 6th-century commentator Simplicius, meaning "simple" in Italian.

The dialogue provides insight into almost all of Galileo's scientific discoveries, as well as his understanding of nature and the possibilities of studying it. He takes a materialistic position; believes that the world exists independently of human consciousness and introduces new methods of research - observation, experiment, thought experiment and quantitative mathematical analysis instead of offensive reasoning and references to authority and dogma.

Galileo considers the world to be one and changeable, without dividing it into “eternal” and “variable” substance; denies absolute motion around a fixed center of the world: "May I reasonably ask you the question whether there is any center of the world at all, because neither you nor anyone else has proven that the world is finite and has a definite shape, and not infinite and unlimited." Galileo made great efforts to have his work published. He makes a number of compromises and writes to readers that he does not adhere to the teachings of Copernicus and provides a hypothetical possibility that does not correspond to reality and should be rejected.

Ban on "Dialogue"

For two years he collected permission from the highest spiritual authorities and the censors of the Inquisition, and at the beginning of 1632 the book was published. But very soon there is a strong reaction from theologians. The Roman Pontiff was convinced that he was depicted under the image of Simplicio. A special commission of theologians was appointed, which declared the work heretical, and the seventy-year-old Galileo was summoned to trial in Rome. The process launched by the Inquisition against him lasts a year and a half and ends with a verdict according to which “Dialogue” is prohibited.

Renouncing your views

On June 22, 1633, in front of all the cardinals and members of the Inquisition, Galileo reads the text of his renunciation of his views. This event ostensibly signals the complete suppression of his resistance, but in reality it is the next big compromise he must make to continue his scientific work. The legendary phrase: “Eppur si muove” (and still it turns) is justified by his life and work after the trial. It is said that he uttered this phrase after his abdication, however, in fact, this fact is an artistic fiction of the 18th century.

Galileo is under house arrest near Florence, and, despite almost losing his sight, he is working hard on a new great work. The manuscript was smuggled out of Italy by her admirers, and in 1638 it was published in the Netherlands under the title Lectures and Mathematical Proofs of Two New Sciences.

Lectures and mathematical proofs of two new sciences

The lectures are the pinnacle of Galileo's work. They were written again as a conversation over six days between three interlocutors - Salviati, Sagredo and Simpliccio. As before, Salvati plays the leading role. Simplicio no longer argued, but asked questions only for more detailed explanations.

On the first, third and fourth days, the theory of the movement of falling and thrown bodies is revealed. The second day is devoted to the topic of materials and geometric balance. The fifth lecture gives mathematical theorems, and the last contains incomplete results and ideas about the theory of resistance. It has the least value among the six. Regarding material resistance, Galileo's work is pioneering in this field and plays an important role.

The most valuable results are contained in the first, third and fifth lectures. This is the highest point that Galileo reached in his understanding of motion. Considering the fall of bodies, he sums up:

"I think that if the resistance of the medium were completely removed, all bodies would fall at the same speed."

The theory of uniform rectilinear and equilibrium motion is further developed. The results of his numerous experiments on free fall, movement on an inclined plane and the movement of a body thrown at an angle to the horizon appear. The time dependence is clearly formulated and the parabolic trajectory is explored. Again, the principle of inertia is proven and used as fundamental in all considerations.

When the Lectures are published, Galileo is completely blind. But in the last years of his life he works. In 1636, he proposed a method for accurately determining longitude at sea using the satellites of Jupiter. His dream is to organize numerous astronomical observations from different points on the earth's surface. To this end, he negotiates with the Dutch commission to accept his method, but is refused and the church prohibits his further contacts. In his last letters to his followers, he continues to make important astronomical points.

Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, surrounded by his students Viviani and Toricelli, his son and a representative of the Inquisition. Only 95 years later were his ashes allowed to be transported to Florence by the other two great sons of Italy, Michelangelo and Dante. His inventive scientific work, passing through the strict criteria of time, gives him immortality among the names of the brightest artists of physics and astronomy.

Galileo Galilei - biography of life and his discoveries

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Galileo was born in 1564 in the Italian city of Pisa, in the family of a well-born but impoverished nobleman, Vincenzo Galilei, a prominent music theorist and lutenist. Galileo Galilei's full name: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei (Italian: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de "Galilei). Representatives of the Galilean family have been mentioned in documents since the 14th century. Several of his direct ancestors were priors (members of the ruling council) of the Florentine Republic, and Galileo's great-great-grandfather , a famous doctor who also bore the name Galileo, was elected head of the republic in 1445.

There were six children in the family of Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati, but four managed to survive: Galileo (the eldest of the children), daughters Virginia, Livia and the youngest son Michelangelo, who later also gained fame as a composer-lutenist. In 1572, Vincenzo moved to Florence, the capital of the Duchy of Tuscany. The Medici dynasty that ruled there was known for its wide and constant patronage of the arts and sciences.

Little is known about Galileo's childhood. From an early age the boy was attracted to art; Throughout his life he carried his love for music and drawing, which he mastered to perfection. In his mature years, the best artists of Florence - Cigoli, Bronzino and others - consulted with him on issues of perspective and composition; Cigoli even claimed that it was to Galileo that he owed his fame. From Galileo's writings one can also conclude that he had remarkable literary talent.

Galileo received his primary education at the nearby Vallombrosa monastery. The boy loved to study and became one of the best students in the class. He weighed the possibility of becoming a priest, but his father was against it.

In 1581, 17-year-old Galileo, at the insistence of his father, entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. At the university, Galileo also attended lectures on geometry (previously he was completely unfamiliar with mathematics) and became so carried away by this science that his father began to fear that this would interfere with the study of medicine.

Galileo remained a student for less than three years; During this time, he managed to thoroughly familiarize himself with the works of ancient philosophers and mathematicians and earned a reputation among teachers as an indomitable debater. Even then, he considered himself entitled to have his own opinion on all scientific issues, regardless of traditional authorities.

It was probably during these years that he became acquainted with the theory of Copernicus. Astronomical problems were then actively discussed, especially in connection with the calendar reform that had just been carried out.

Galileo is rightfully considered the founder of not only experimental, but - to a large extent - theoretical physics. In his scientific method, he deliberately combined thoughtful experimentation with rational understanding and generalization, and he personally provided impressive examples of such research. Sometimes, due to a lack of scientific data, Galileo was wrong (for example, in questions about the shape of planetary orbits, the nature of comets, or the causes of tides), but in the vast majority of cases his method was successful. It is characteristic that Kepler, who had more complete and accurate data than Galileo, made the correct conclusions in cases where Galileo was wrong.

One of the most famous astronomers, physicists and philosophers in human history is Galileo Galilei. A short biography and his discoveries, which you will now learn about, will allow you to get a general idea of this outstanding person.

First steps in the world of science

Galileo was born in Pisa (Italy), February 15, 1564. At the age of eighteen, the young man entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. His father pushed him to take this step, but due to lack of money, Galileo was soon forced to leave his studies. However, the time that the future scientist spent at the university was not in vain, because it was here that he began to take a keen interest in mathematics and physics. No longer a student, the gifted Galileo Galilei did not abandon his hobbies. A brief biography and his discoveries made during this period played an important role in the future fate of the scientist. He devotes some time to independent research into mechanics, and then returns to the University of Pisa, this time as a mathematics teacher. After some time, he was invited to continue teaching at the University of Padua, where he explained to students the basics of mechanics, geometry and astronomy. It was at this time that Galileo began to make discoveries significant for science.

In 1593, the first scientist was published - a book with the laconic title “Mechanics”, in which Galileo described his observations.

Astronomical research

After the book was published, a new Galileo Galilei was “born”. A short biography and his discoveries is a topic that cannot be discussed without mentioning the events of 1609. After all, it was then that Galileo independently built his first telescope with a concave eyepiece and a convex lens. The device gave an increase of approximately three times. However, Galileo did not stop there. Continuing to improve his telescope, he increased the magnification to 32 times. While using it to observe the Earth's satellite, the Moon, Galileo discovered that its surface, like the Earth's, was not flat, but covered with various mountains and numerous craters. Four stars were also discovered through the glass and changed their usual sizes, and for the first time the idea of their global remoteness arose. turned out to be a huge accumulation of millions of new celestial bodies. In addition, the scientist began to observe, study the movement of the Sun and make notes about sunspots.

Conflict with the Church

The biography of Galileo Galilei is another round in the confrontation between the science of that time and church teaching. The scientist, based on his observations, soon comes to the conclusion that the heliocentric one, first proposed and substantiated by Copernicus, is the only correct one. This was contrary to the literal understanding of Psalms 93 and 104, as well as Ecclesiastes 1:5, which refers to the immobility of the Earth. Galileo was summoned to Rome, where they demanded that he stop promoting “heretical” views, and the scientist was forced to comply.

However, Galileo Galilei, whose discoveries at that time were already appreciated by some representatives of the scientific community, did not stop there. In 1632, he made a cunning move - he published a book entitled “Dialogue on the two most important systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican.” This work was written in an unusual form of dialogue at that time, the participants of which were two supporters of the Copernican theory, as well as one follower of the teachings of Ptolemy and Aristotle. Pope Urban VIII, a good friend of Galileo, even gave permission for the book to be published. But this did not last long - after just a couple of months, the work was recognized as contrary to the tenets of the church and prohibited. The author was summoned to Rome for trial.

The investigation lasted quite a long time: from April 21 to June 21, 1633. On June 22, Galileo was forced to pronounce the text proposed to him, according to which he renounced his “false” beliefs.

The last years in the life of a scientist

I had to work in the most difficult conditions. Galileo was sent to his Villa Archertri in Florence. Here he was under constant supervision of the Inquisition and had no right to go to the city (Rome). In 1634, the scientist’s beloved daughter, who took care of him for a long time, died.

Death came to Galileo on January 8, 1642. He was buried on the territory of his villa, without any honors and even without a tombstone. However, in 1737, almost a hundred years later, the scientist’s last will was fulfilled - his ashes were transferred to the monastic chapel of the Florence Cathedral of Santa Croce. On the seventeenth of March he was finally buried there, not far from Michelangelo’s tomb.

Posthumous rehabilitation

Was Galileo Galilei right in his beliefs? A short biography and his discoveries have long been a topic of debate between clergy and luminaries of the scientific world; many conflicts and disputes have developed on this basis. However, only on December 31, 1992 (!) John Paul II officially admitted that the Inquisition in the 33rd year of the 17th century made a mistake, forcing the scientist to renounce the heliocentric theory of the universe formulated by Nicolaus Copernicus.

Galileo Galileo- an outstanding Italian scientist, the author of a large number of important astronomical discoveries, the founder of experimental physics, the creator of the foundations of classical mechanics, a gifted literary person - was born into the family of a famous musician, an impoverished nobleman on February 15, 1564 in Pisa. His full name is Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei. Art in its various manifestations interested young Galileo since childhood; he not only fell in love with painting and music throughout his life, but was also a true master in these fields.

Having been educated in a monastery, Galileo thought about a career as a clergyman, but his father insisted that his son study to become a doctor, and in 1581 the 17-year-old young man began to study medicine at the University of Pisa. During his studies, Galileo showed great interest in mathematics and physics, had his own point of view on many issues, different from the opinions of the luminaries, and was known as a great lover of discussions. Due to the family's financial difficulties, Galileo did not study for even three years and in 1585 was forced to return to Florence without an academic degree.

In 1586, Galileo published his first scientific work, entitled “Small Hydrostatic Balances.” Seeing remarkable potential in the young man, he was taken under the wing of the wealthy Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, who was interested in science, thanks to whose efforts Galileo received a paid scientific position. In 1589, he returned to the University of Pisa, but as a professor of mathematics - there he began to work on his own research in the field of mathematics and mechanics. In 1590, his work “On Movement”, which criticized Aristotelian teaching, was published.

In 1592, a new, extremely fruitful stage began in Galileo’s biography, associated with his move to the Venetian Republic and teaching at the University of Padua, a wealthy educational institution with an excellent reputation. The scientist's scientific authority grew rapidly; in Padua he quickly became the most famous and popular professor, respected not only by the scientific community, but also by the government.

Galileo's scientific research received new impetus due to the discovery in 1604 of the star known today as Kepler's supernova and the resulting increased general interest in astronomy. At the end of 1609, he invented and created the first telescope, with the help of which he made a number of discoveries described in the work “Starry Messenger” (1610) - for example, the presence of mountains and craters on the Moon, satellites of Jupiter, etc. The book produced a real sensation and brought Galileo pan-European fame. His personal life was also arranged during this period: a civil marriage with Marina Gamba subsequently gave him three beloved children.

The fame of the great scientist did not relieve Galileo of financial problems, which was the impetus for moving to Florence in 1610, where, thanks to Duke Cosimo II de' Medici, he managed to obtain a prestigious and well-paid position as a court adviser with light responsibilities. Galileo continued to make scientific discoveries, among which were, in particular, the presence of spots on the Sun and its rotation around its axis. The camp of the scientist’s ill-wishers was constantly growing, not least because of his habit of expressing his views in a harsh, polemical manner, and because of his growing influence.

In 1613, the book “Letters on Sunspots” was published with an open defense of Copernicus’s views on the structure of the solar system, which undermined the authority of the church, because did not coincide with the postulates of the sacred scriptures. In February 1615, the Inquisition began its first case against Galileo. Already in March of the same year, heliocentrism was officially declared a dangerous heresy, and therefore the scientist’s book was banned - with a warning from the author about the inadmissibility of further support of Copernicanism. Returning to Florence, Galileo changed tactics, making the teachings of Aristotle the main object of his critical mind.

In the spring of 1630, the scientist sums up his many years of work in the “Dialogue on the two most important systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican.” The book, published by hook or by crook, attracted the attention of the Inquisition, as a result of which a couple of months later it was withdrawn from sale, and its author was summoned to Rome on February 13, 1633, where until June 21 an investigation was conducted into accusing him of heresy. Faced with a difficult choice, Galileo, in order to avoid the fate of Giordano Bruno, renounced his views and spent the rest of his life under house arrest in his villa near Florence, under the strictest control of the Inquisition.

But even under such conditions, he did not stop his scientific activities, although everything that came from his pen was censored. In 1638, his work “Conversations and Mathematical Proofs...”, secretly sent to Holland, was published, on the basis of which Huygens and Newton subsequently continued to develop the postulates of mechanics. The last five years of the biography were overshadowed by illness: Galileo worked, being practically blind, with the help of his students.

The greatest scientist, who died on January 8, 1642, was buried as a mere mortal; the Pope did not give permission for the installation of the monument. In 1737, his ashes were solemnly reburied, according to the dying will of the deceased, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. In 1835, work was completed to exclude Galileo’s works from the list of prohibited literature, begun on the initiative of Pope Benedict XIV in 1758, and in October 1992, Pope John Paul II, following the results of the work of a special rehabilitation commission, officially recognized the error of the Inquisition’s actions against Galileo Galilei.

Biography from Wikipedia

Galileo Galilei(Italian: Galileo Galilei; February 15, 1564, Pisa - January 8, 1642, Arcetri) - Italian physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher, mathematician, who had a significant influence on the science of his time. He was the first to use a telescope to observe celestial bodies and made a number of outstanding astronomical discoveries. Galileo is the founder of experimental physics. With his experiments, he convincingly refuted Aristotle's speculative metaphysics and laid the foundation of classical mechanics.

During his lifetime, he was known as an active supporter of the heliocentric system of the world, which led Galileo to a serious conflict with the Catholic Church.

early years

Little is known about Galileo's childhood. From an early age the boy was attracted to art; Throughout his life he carried with him a love of music and drawing, which he mastered to perfection. In his mature years, the best artists of Florence - Cigoli, Bronzino and others - consulted with him on issues of perspective and composition; Cigoli even claimed that it was to Galileo that he owed his fame. From Galileo's writings one can also conclude that he had remarkable literary talent.

Galileo received his primary education at the nearby Vallombrosa monastery, where he was accepted as a novice into the monastic order. The boy loved to study and became one of the best students in the class. He considered becoming a priest, but his father was against it.

Old building of the University of Pisa (nowadays the Ecole Normale Supérieure)

It was probably during these years that he became acquainted with the Copernican theory. Astronomical problems were then actively discussed, especially in connection with the calendar reform that had just been carried out.

Soon, the father’s financial situation worsened, and he was unable to pay for his son’s further education. The request to exempt Galileo from paying fees (such an exception was made for the most capable students) was rejected. Galileo returned to Florence (1585) without receiving his degree. Fortunately, he managed to attract attention with several ingenious inventions (for example, hydrostatic balances), thanks to which he met the educated and wealthy lover of science, the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte. The Marquis, unlike the Pisan professors, was able to correctly evaluate him. Even then, del Monte said that since the time of Archimedes the world had not seen such a genius as Galileo. Admired by the young man’s extraordinary talent, the Marquis became his friend and patron; he introduced Galileo to the Tuscan Duke Ferdinand I de' Medici and petitioned for a paid scientific position for him.

In 1589, Galileo returned to the University of Pisa, now as a professor of mathematics. There he began to conduct independent research in mechanics and mathematics. True, he was given a minimum salary: 60 crowns a year (a professor of medicine received 2000 crowns). In 1590, Galileo wrote his treatise On Motion.

In 1591, the father died, and responsibility for the family passed to Galileo. First of all, he had to take care of raising his younger brother and the dowry of his two unmarried sisters.

In 1592, Galileo received a position at the prestigious and wealthy University of Padua (Venetian Republic), where he taught astronomy, mechanics and mathematics. Based on the letter of recommendation from the Doge of Venice to the university, one can judge that Galileo’s scientific authority was already extremely high in these years:

Realizing the importance of mathematical knowledge and its benefits for other major sciences, we delayed the appointment, not finding a worthy candidate. Signor Galileo, a former professor at Pisa, who enjoys great fame and is rightly recognized as the most knowledgeable in the mathematical sciences, has now expressed a desire to take this place. Therefore, we are pleased to give him the chair of mathematics for four years with a salary of 180 florins per year.

Padua, 1592-1610

The years of his stay in Padua were the most fruitful period of Galileo's scientific activity. He soon became the most famous professor in Padua. Students flocked to his lectures, the Venetian government constantly entrusted Galileo with the development of various kinds of technical devices, young Kepler and other scientific authorities of that time actively corresponded with him.

During these years he wrote a treatise called Mechanics, which aroused some interest and was republished in a French translation. In early works, as well as in correspondence, Galileo gave the first sketch of a new general theory of falling bodies and the motion of a pendulum. In 1604, Galileo was denounced to the Inquisition - he was accused of practicing astrology and reading forbidden literature. The Padua inquisitor Cesare Lippi, who sympathized with Galileo, left the denunciation without consequences.

The reason for a new stage in Galileo's scientific research was the appearance in 1604 of a new star, now called Kepler's Supernova. This awakens general interest in astronomy, and Galileo gives a series of private lectures. Having learned about the invention of the telescope in Holland, Galileo in 1609 constructed the first telescope with his own hands and aimed it at the sky.

What Galileo saw was so amazing that even many years later there were people who refused to believe in his discoveries and claimed that it was an illusion or delusion. Galileo discovered mountains on the Moon, the Milky Way broke up into separate stars, but his contemporaries were especially amazed by the four satellites of Jupiter he discovered (1610). In honor of the four sons of his late patron Ferdinand de' Medici (who died in 1609), Galileo named these satellites "Medician stars" (lat. Stellae Medicae). Now they bear the more appropriate name of “Galilean satellites”; the modern names of the satellites were proposed by Simon Marius in his treatise “The World of Jupiter” (lat. Mundus Iovialis, 1614).

Galileo described his first discoveries with a telescope in his work “The Starry Messenger” (Latin: Sidereus Nuncius), published in Florence in 1610. The book was a sensational success throughout Europe, even crowned heads rushed to order a telescope. Galileo donated several telescopes to the Venetian Senate, which, as a sign of gratitude, appointed him a professor for life with a salary of 1,000 florins. In September 1610, Kepler acquired a telescope, and in December, Galileo's discoveries were confirmed by the influential Roman astronomer Clavius. Universal recognition is coming. Galileo becomes the most famous scientist in Europe; odes are written in his honor, comparing him to Columbus. On April 20, 1610, shortly before his death, the French king Henry IV asked Galileo to discover a star for him. There were, however, some dissatisfied people. Astronomer Francesco Sizzi (Italian: Sizzi) published a pamphlet in which he stated that seven is a perfect number, and even there are seven holes in the human head, so there can only be seven planets, and Galileo’s discoveries are an illusion. The discoveries of Galileo were also declared illusory by the Padua professor Cesare Cremonini, and the Czech astronomer Martin Horky ( Martin Horky) informed Kepler that Bolognese scientists did not trust the telescope: “On earth it works amazingly; in the heavens deceives, for some single stars appear double.” Astrologers and doctors also protested, complaining that the emergence of new celestial bodies was “disastrous for astrology and most of medicine,” since all the usual astrological methods “will be completely destroyed.”

During these years, Galileo entered into a civil marriage with the Venetian Marina Gamba (Italian: Marina di Andrea Gamba, 1570-1612). He never married Marina, but became the father of a son and two daughters. He named his son Vincenzo in memory of his father, and his daughters Virginia and Livia in honor of his sisters. Later, in 1619, Galileo officially legitimized his son; both daughters ended their lives in a monastery.

Pan-European fame and the need for money pushed Galileo to take a disastrous step, as it later turned out: in 1610 he left calm Venice, where he was inaccessible to the Inquisition, and moved to Florence. Duke Cosimo II de' Medici, son of Ferdinand I, promised Galileo an honorable and profitable position as an adviser at the Tuscan court. He kept his promise, which allowed Galileo to solve the problem of huge debts that had accumulated after the marriage of his two sisters.

Florence, 1610-1632

Galileo's duties at the court of Duke Cosimo II were not burdensome - teaching the sons of the Tuscan Duke and participating in some matters as an adviser and representative of the Duke. Formally, he is also enrolled as a professor at the University of Pisa, but is relieved of the tedious duty of lecturing.

Galileo continues his scientific research and discovers the phases of Venus, spots on the Sun, and then the rotation of the Sun around its axis. Galileo often presented his achievements (as well as his priority) in a cocky polemical style, which earned him many new enemies (in particular, among the Jesuits).

Defense of Copernicanism

The growing influence of Galileo, the independence of his thinking and his sharp opposition to the teachings of Aristotle contributed to the formation of an aggressive circle of his opponents, consisting of Peripatetic professors and some church leaders. Galileo's ill-wishers were especially outraged by his propaganda of the heliocentric system of the world, since, in their opinion, the rotation of the Earth contradicted the texts of the Psalms (Psalm 103:5), a verse from Ecclesiastes (Ecc. 1:5), as well as an episode from the Book of Joshua ( Joshua 10:12), which speaks of the motionlessness of the Earth and the movement of the Sun. In addition, a detailed substantiation of the concept of the immobility of the Earth and a refutation of hypotheses about its rotation was contained in Aristotle’s treatise “On Heaven” and in Ptolemy’s “Almagest”.

In 1611, Galileo, in the aura of his glory, decided to go to Rome, hoping to convince the Pope that Copernicanism was completely compatible with Catholicism. He was received well, elected the sixth member of the scientific “Academia dei Lincei”, and met Pope Paul V and influential cardinals. He showed them his telescope and gave explanations carefully and carefully. The cardinals created an entire commission to clarify the question of whether it was sinful to look at the sky through a pipe, but they came to the conclusion that this was permissible. It was also encouraging that Roman astronomers openly discussed the question of whether Venus was moving around the Earth or around the Sun (the changing phases of Venus clearly spoke in favor of the second option).

Emboldened, Galileo, in a letter to his student Abbot Castelli (1613), stated that Holy Scripture relates only to the salvation of the soul and is not authoritative in scientific matters: “not a single saying of Scripture has such a coercive force as any natural phenomenon.” Moreover, he published this letter, which caused denunciations to the Inquisition. Also in 1613, Galileo published the book “Letters on Sunspots,” in which he openly spoke out in favor of the Copernican system. On February 25, 1615, the Roman Inquisition opened its first case against Galileo on charges of heresy. Galileo's last mistake was his call to Rome to express its final attitude towards Copernicanism (1615).

All this caused a reaction opposite to what was expected. Alarmed by the successes of the Reformation, the Catholic Church decided to strengthen its spiritual monopoly - in particular, by banning Copernicanism. The position of the Church is clarified by a letter from the influential Cardinal Inquisitor Bellarmino, sent on April 12, 1615 to the theologian Paolo Antonio Foscarini, a defender of Copernicanism. In this letter, the cardinal explained that the Church does not object to the interpretation of Copernicanism as a convenient mathematical device, but accepting it as a reality would mean admitting that the previous, traditional interpretation of the biblical text was erroneous. And this, in turn, will undermine the authority of the church:

First, it seems to me that your priesthood and Mr. Galileo act wisely in being content with what they say tentatively and not absolutely; I always believed that Copernicus said so too. Because if we say that the assumption of the movement of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun allows us to imagine all phenomena better than the acceptance of eccentrics and epicycles, then this will be said perfectly and does not entail any danger. For a mathematician this is quite enough. But to assert that the Sun is in fact the center of the world and revolves only around itself, without moving from east to west, that the Earth stands in the third heaven and revolves around the Sun with enormous speed, is very dangerous to assert, not only because it means to excite the irritation of all philosophers and scholastic theologians; this would mean harming the holy faith by representing the provisions of Holy Scripture as false...
Secondly, as you know, the [Trent] Council forbade interpreting the Holy Scriptures contrary to the general opinion of the Holy Fathers. And if your priesthood wants to read not only the Holy Fathers, but also new commentaries on the book of Exodus, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the book of Jesus, then you will find that everyone agrees that this must be taken literally - that the Sun is in the sky and revolves around the Earth with great speed, and the Earth is farthest from the sky and stands motionless in the center of the world. Judge for yourself, with all your prudence, can the Church allow Scripture to be given a meaning contrary to everything that the Holy Fathers and all Greek and Latin interpreters wrote?

On February 24, 1616, eleven qualifiers (experts of the Inquisition) officially identified heliocentrism as a dangerous heresy:

To claim that the Sun stands motionless in the center of the world is an absurd opinion, false from a philosophical point of view and formally heretical, since it directly contradicts the Holy Scriptures.
To claim that the Earth is not at the center of the world, that it does not remain motionless and even has a daily rotation, is an equally absurd opinion, false from a philosophical point of view and sinful from a religious point of view.

On March 5, Pope Paul V approved this decision. It should be noted that the expression “formally heretical” in the text of the conclusion meant that this opinion contradicts the most important, fundamental provisions of the Catholic faith. On the same day, the Pope approved a decree of the congregation that included Copernicus's book in the Index of Prohibited Books "until its correction." At the same time, the Index included the works of Foscarini and several other Copernicans. "Letters on Sunspots" and other books of Galileo, which defended heliocentrism, were not mentioned. The decree prescribed:

... So that from now on no one, whatever his rank and whatever position he holds, dares to print them or contribute to the printing, keep them or read them, and everyone who has or will henceforth have them is charged with the duty immediately upon publication of this decree to present them to local authorities or inquisitors.

Galileo spent all this time (from December 1615 to March 1616) in Rome, unsuccessfully trying to turn things around. On the instructions of the Pope, Bellarmino summoned him on February 26 and assured him that nothing threatened him personally, but from now on all support for the “Copernican heresy” must be stopped. As a sign of reconciliation, on March 11, Galileo was honored with a 45-minute walk with the Pope.

The church prohibition of heliocentrism, the truth of which Galileo was convinced, was unacceptable for the scientist. He returned to Florence and began to think about how, without formally violating the ban, he could continue to defend the truth. He eventually decided to publish a book containing a neutral discussion of different points of view. He wrote this book for 16 years, collecting materials, honing his arguments and waiting for the right moment.

Creating new mechanics

After the fatal decree of 1616, Galileo changed the direction of his struggle for several years - now he focuses his efforts primarily on criticizing Aristotle, whose writings also formed the basis of the medieval worldview. In 1623, Galileo’s book “The Assay Master” (Italian: Il Saggiatore) was published; This is a pamphlet directed against the Jesuits, in which Galileo sets out his erroneous theory of comets (he believed that comets are not cosmic bodies, but optical phenomena in the Earth's atmosphere). The position of the Jesuits (and Aristotle) in this case was closer to the truth: comets are extraterrestrial objects. This mistake did not, however, prevent Galileo from presenting and wittily arguing his scientific method, from which grew the mechanistic worldview of subsequent centuries.

In the same 1623, Matteo Barberini, an old acquaintance and friend of Galileo, was elected as the new Pope, under the name Urban VIII. In April 1624, Galileo went to Rome, hoping to get the 1616 edict revoked. He was received with all honors, awarded with gifts and flattering words, but achieved nothing on the main issue. The edict was revoked only two centuries later, in 1818. Urban VIII especially praised the book “The Assay Master” and forbade the Jesuits to continue their polemics with Galileo.

In 1624, Galileo published Letters to Ingoli; it is a response to the anti-Copernican treatise of the theologian Francesco Ingoli. Galileo immediately stipulates that he is not going to defend Copernicanism, but only wants to show that it has solid scientific foundations. He used this technique later in his main book, “Dialogue on Two World Systems”; part of the text of “Letters to Ingoli” was simply transferred to “Dialogue”. In his consideration, Galileo equates the stars to the Sun, points out the colossal distance to them, and speaks of the infinity of the Universe. He even allowed himself a dangerous phrase: “If any point in the world can be called its [the world’s] center, then this is the center of revolutions of celestial bodies; and in it, as anyone who understands these matters knows, is the Sun, and not the Earth.” He also stated that the planets and the Moon, like the Earth, attract the bodies on them.

But the main scientific value of this work is laying the foundations of a new, non-Aristotelian mechanics, developed 12 years later in Galileo’s last work, “Conversations and Mathematical Proofs of Two New Sciences.” Already in his Letters to Ingoli, Galileo clearly formulated the principle of relativity for uniform motion:

The results of the shooting will always be the same, no matter which country it is directed towards... this will happen because the same should happen whether the Earth is moving or standing still... Give the ship movement, and at any speed; then (if only its movement is uniform, and not oscillating back and forth) you will not notice the slightest difference [in what is happening].

In modern terminology, Galileo proclaimed the homogeneity of space (the absence of a center of the world) and the equality of inertial reference systems. An important anti-Aristotelian point should be noted: Galileo's argumentation implicitly assumes that the results of earthly experiments can be transferred to celestial bodies, that is, the laws on Earth and in heaven are the same.

At the end of his book, Galileo, with obvious irony, expresses the hope that his essay will help Ingoli replace his objections to Copernicanism with others that are more consistent with science.

In 1628, 18-year-old Ferdinand II, a pupil of Galileo, became Grand Duke of Tuscany; his father Cosimo II had died seven years earlier. The new duke maintained a warm relationship with the scientist, was proud of him and helped him in every possible way.

Valuable information about the life of Galileo is contained in the surviving correspondence between Galileo and his eldest daughter Virginia, who took the name Maria Celeste. She lived in a Franciscan monastery in Arcetri, near Florence. The monastery, as befits the Franciscans, was poor, the father often sent his daughter food and flowers, in return the daughter prepared him jam, mended his clothes, and copied documents. Only letters from Maria Celeste have survived - letters from Galileo, most likely, the monastery was destroyed after the trial of 1633. The second daughter, Livia, a monk of Arcangel, lived in the same monastery, but was often ill and did not take part in the correspondence.

In 1629, Vincenzo, son of Galileo, married and settled with his father. The following year, Galileo had a grandson named after him. Soon, however, alarmed by another plague epidemic, Vincenzo and his family leave. Galileo is considering a plan to move to Arcetri, closer to his beloved daughter; this plan was realized in September 1631.

Conflict with the Catholic Church

In March 1630, the book “Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican,” the result of almost 30 years of work, was basically completed, and Galileo, deciding that the moment for its publication was favorable, provided the then version to his friend, the papal censor Riccardi . He waits for his decision for almost a year, then decides to use a trick. He adds a preface to the book, where he declares his goal to debunk Copernicanism and transfers the book to the Tuscan censorship, and, according to some information, in an incomplete and softened form. Having received a positive review, he forwards it to Rome. In the summer of 1631 he received the long-awaited permission.

At the beginning of 1632, the Dialogue was published. The book is written in the form of a dialogue between three lovers of science: the Copernican Salviati, the neutral Sagredo and Simplicio, an adherent of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Although the book does not contain the author's conclusions, the strength of the arguments in favor of the Copernican system speaks for itself. It is also important that the book was written not in learned Latin, but in “folk” Italian.

Pope Urban VIII. Portrait by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, circa 1625

Galileo hoped that the Pope would treat his trick as leniently as he had previously treated the “Letters to Ingoli” with similar ideas, but he miscalculated. To top it all off, he himself recklessly sends out 30 copies of his book to influential clergy in Rome. As noted above, shortly before (1623) Galileo came into conflict with the Jesuits; He had few defenders left in Rome, and even those, assessing the danger of the situation, chose not to intervene.

Most biographers agree that in the simpleton Simplicio the Pope recognized himself, his arguments, and became furious. Historians note such characteristic features of Urban as despotism, stubbornness and incredible conceit. Galileo himself later believed that the initiative of the trial belonged to the Jesuits, who presented the Pope with an extremely tendentious denunciation about Galileo’s book. Within a few months, the book was banned and withdrawn from sale, and Galileo was summoned to Rome (despite the plague epidemic) to be tried by the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy. After unsuccessful attempts to obtain a reprieve due to poor health and the ongoing epidemic of plague (Urban threatened to deliver him by force in shackles), Galileo complied, wrote a will, served the required plague quarantine and arrived in Rome on February 13, 1633. Niccolini, the representative of Tuscany in Rome, at the direction of Duke Ferdinand II, settled Galileo in the embassy building. The investigation lasted from April 21 to June 21, 1633.

Galileo before the Inquisition Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, 1847, Louvre

At the end of the first interrogation, the accused was taken into custody. Galileo spent only 18 days in prison (from April 12 to April 30, 1633) - this unusual leniency was probably caused by Galileo's agreement to repent, as well as the influence of the Tuscan Duke, who constantly worked to mitigate the fate of his old teacher. Taking into account his illness and advanced age, one of the service rooms in the building of the Inquisitorial Tribunal was used as a prison.

Historians have explored the question of whether Galileo was subjected to torture during his imprisonment. The documents of the trial were not published by the Vatican in full, and what was published may have been subject to preliminary editing. Nevertheless, the following words were found in the Inquisition verdict:

Having noticed that when you answer, you are not entirely sincerely admitting your intentions, we considered it necessary to resort to a strict test.
Judgment on Galileo (lat.)

Galileo in prison Jean Antoine Laurent

After the “test,” Galileo, in a letter from prison (April 23), carefully reports that he does not get out of bed, as he is tormented by “a terrible pain in his thigh.” Some biographers of Galileo suggest that torture actually took place, while others consider this assumption unproven; only the threat of torture, often accompanied by an imitation of the torture itself, was documented. In any case, if there was torture, it was on a moderate scale, since on April 30 the scientist was released back to the Tuscan embassy.

Judging by the surviving documents and letters, scientific topics were not discussed at the trial. The main questions were: whether Galileo deliberately violated the edict of 1616, and whether he repented of his deeds. Three Inquisition experts gave their conclusion: the book violates the ban on promoting the “Pythagorean” doctrine. As a result, the scientist was faced with a choice: either he would repent and renounce his “delusions,” or he would suffer the fate of Giordano Bruno.

Having familiarized himself with the entire course of the case and listened to the testimony, His Holiness decided to interrogate Galileo under threat of torture and, if he resists, then after a preliminary renunciation as strongly suspected of heresy... to sentence him to imprisonment at the discretion of the Holy Congregation. He is ordered not to talk in writing or orally in any way about the movement of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun... under pain of punishment as incorrigible.

Galileo's last interrogation took place on June 21. Galileo confirmed that he agreed to make the renunciation required of him; this time he was not allowed to go to the embassy and was again taken into custody. On June 22, the verdict was announced: Galileo was guilty of distributing a book with “false, heretical, contrary to Holy Scripture teaching” about the movement of the Earth:

As a result of considering your guilt and your consciousness in it, we condemn and declare you, Galileo, for everything stated above and confessed by you under strong suspicion at this Holy Judgment of heresy, as possessed by a false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scripture thought that the Sun is the center of the earth's orbit and does not move from east to west, but the Earth is mobile and is not the center of the Universe. We also recognize you as a disobedient church authority, who forbade you to expound, defend and present as probable a teaching recognized as false and contrary to Holy Scripture... So that such a grave and harmful sin and disobedience of yours would not remain without any reward and you would subsequently become even more daring, but , on the contrary, would serve as an example and warning for others, we decided to ban the book entitled “Dialogue” by Galileo Galilei, and imprison you yourself in prison at the Holy Judgment Seat for an indefinite time.

Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment for a term to be determined by the Pope. He was declared not a heretic, but “strongly suspected of heresy”; This formulation was also a grave accusation, but it saved him from the fire. After the verdict was announced, Galileo on his knees pronounced the text of the renunciation offered to him. Copies of the verdict, by personal order of Pope Urban, were sent to all universities in Catholic Europe.

Galileo Galilei, around 1630 Peter Paul Rubens

Last years

The Pope did not keep Galileo in prison for long. After the verdict, Galileo was settled in one of the Medici villas, from where he was transferred to the palace of his friend, Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena. Five months later, Galileo was allowed to go home, and he settled in Arcetri, next to the monastery where his daughters were. Here he spent the rest of his life under house arrest and under constant surveillance by the Inquisition.

Galileo's detention regime was no different from prison, and he was constantly threatened with transfer to prison for the slightest violation of the regime. Galileo was not allowed to visit cities, although the seriously ill prisoner needed constant medical supervision. In the early years he was forbidden to receive guests on pain of being transferred to prison; Subsequently, the regime was somewhat softened, and friends were able to visit Galileo - however, no more than one at a time.

The Inquisition monitored the prisoner for the rest of his life; even at the death of Galileo, two of its representatives were present. All his printed works were subject to particularly careful censorship. Note that in Protestant Holland the publication of the Dialogue continued (first publication: 1635, translated into Latin).

In 1634, the 33-year-old eldest daughter Virginia (Maria Celeste in monasticism), Galileo’s favorite, who devotedly cared for her sick father and keenly experienced his misadventures, died. Galileo writes that he is possessed by “boundless sadness and melancholy... I constantly hear my dear daughter calling me.” Galileo's health deteriorated, but he continued to work vigorously in the areas of science permitted to him.

A letter from Galileo to his friend Elia Diodati (1634) has been preserved, where he shares news of his misadventures, points to their culprits (the Jesuits) and shares plans for future research. The letter was sent through a proxy, and Galileo is quite frank in it:

In Rome, I was sentenced by the Holy Inquisition to imprisonment on the orders of His Holiness... the place of imprisonment for me was this small town one mile from Florence, with the strictest prohibition from going down into the city, meeting and talking with friends and inviting them...
When I returned from the monastery with a doctor who visited my sick daughter before her death, and the doctor told me that the case was hopeless and that she would not survive the next day (as it happened), I found the vicar-inquisitor at home. He came to order me, by order of the Holy Inquisition in Rome... that I should not apply for permission to return to Florence, otherwise I would be put in a real prison of the Holy Inquisition...
This incident, and others which would take too long to write, show that the fury of my very powerful persecutors is constantly increasing. And they finally wanted to reveal their faces: when one of my dear friends in Rome, about two months ago, in a conversation with Padre Christopher Greenberg, a Jesuit, mathematician of this college, touched on my affairs, this Jesuit said to my friend literally the following: “ If Galileo had been able to retain the favor of the fathers of this college, he would have lived in freedom, enjoying fame, he would not have had any sorrows and he could have written at his own discretion about anything - even about the movement of the Earth,” etc. So, You see that they attacked me not because of this or that opinion of mine, but because I am out of favor with the Jesuits.

At the end of the letter, Galileo ridicules the ignorant who “declares the mobility of the Earth to be a heresy” and says that he intends to anonymously publish a new treatise in defense of his position, but first wants to finish a long-planned book on mechanics. Of these two plans, he managed to implement only the second - he wrote a book on mechanics, summarizing his earlier discoveries in this area.

Soon after the death of his daughter, Galileo completely lost his sight, but continued scientific research, relying on his faithful students: Castelli, Torricelli and Viviani (the author of the first biography of Galileo). In a letter on January 30, 1638, Galileo stated:

I do not stop, even in the darkness that has engulfed me, from constructing reasoning about one or another natural phenomenon, and I could not give my restless mind rest, even if I wished for it.

Galileo's last book was Discourses and Mathematical Proofs of Two New Sciences, which sets out the fundamentals of kinematics and strength of materials. In fact, the content of the book is a demolition of Aristotelian dynamics; in return, Galileo puts forward his principles of motion, verified by experience. Challenging the Inquisition, Galileo brought out in his new book the same three characters as in the previously banned “Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World.” In May 1636, the scientist negotiated the publication of his work in Holland, and then secretly sent the manuscript there. In a confidential letter to his friend, Comte de Noel (to whom he dedicated this book), Galileo stated that the new work “puts me again in the ranks of the fighters.” “Conversations...” was published in July 1638, and the book reached Arcetri almost a year later - in June 1639. This work became a reference book for Huygens and Newton, who completed the construction of the foundations of mechanics begun by Galileo.

Only once, shortly before his death (March 1638), the Inquisition allowed the blind and seriously ill Galileo to leave Arcetri and settle in Florence for treatment. At the same time, under pain of prison, he was forbidden to leave the house and discuss the “damned opinion” about the movement of the Earth. However, a few months later, after the appearance of the Dutch publication “Conversations...”, the permission was canceled and the scientist was ordered to return to Arcetri. Galileo was going to continue the “Conversations...” by writing two more chapters, but did not have time to complete his plan.

Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, at the age of 78, in his bed. Pope Urban forbade Galileo to be buried in the family crypt of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. He was buried in Arcetri without honors; the Pope also did not allow him to erect a monument.

The youngest daughter, Livia, died in the monastery. Later, Galileo’s only grandson also became a monk and burned the scientist’s priceless manuscripts that he kept as ungodly. He was the last representative of the Galilean family.

In 1737, Galileo's ashes, as he had requested, were transferred to the Basilica of Santa Croce, where on March 17 he was solemnly buried next to Michelangelo. In 1758, Pope Benedict XIV ordered that works advocating heliocentrism be removed from the Index of Prohibited Books; however, this work was carried out slowly and was completed only in 1835.

From 1979 to 1981, on the initiative of Pope John Paul II, a commission worked to rehabilitate Galileo, and on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II officially admitted that the Inquisition in 1633 made a mistake by forcefully forcing the scientist to renounce the Copernican theory.

Scientific achievements

Galileo is rightfully considered the founder of not only experimental, but, to a large extent, theoretical physics. In his scientific method, he deliberately combined thoughtful experimentation with rational understanding and generalization, and he personally provided impressive examples of such research. Sometimes, due to a lack of scientific data, Galileo was wrong (for example, in questions about the shape of planetary orbits, the nature of comets, or the causes of tides), but in the vast majority of cases his method was successful. It is characteristic that Kepler, who had more complete and accurate data than Galileo, made the correct conclusions in cases where Galileo was wrong.

Philosophy and scientific method

Although there were wonderful engineers in ancient Greece (Archimedes, Heron and others), the very idea of an experimental method of cognition, which should complement and confirm deductive-speculative constructions, was alien to the aristocratic spirit of ancient physics. In Europe, back in the 13th century, Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon called for the creation of an experimental science that could describe natural phenomena in mathematical language, but before Galileo there was no significant progress in the implementation of this idea: scientific methods differed little from theological ones, and answers to scientific questions they continued to look in the books of ancient authorities. The scientific revolution in physics begins with Galileo.

Regarding the philosophy of nature, Galileo was a convinced rationalist. Galileo noted that the human mind, no matter how far it goes, will always grasp only an infinitesimal part of the truth. But at the same time, in terms of the level of reliability, the mind is quite capable of comprehending the laws of nature. In "Dialogue on Two World Systems" he wrote:

Extensively, those in relation to the set of cognizable objects, and this set is infinite, human knowledge is like nothing, although he knows thousands of truths, since a thousand compared to infinity is like zero; but if we take knowledge intensively, then since the term "intensive" means the knowledge of some truth, then I maintain that the human mind knows some truths as perfectly and with such absolute certainty as nature itself has; such are the pure mathematical sciences, geometry and arithmetic; although the Divine mind knows in them infinitely more truths... but in those few that the human mind has comprehended, I think its knowledge is equal in objective certainty to the Divine, for it comes to an understanding of their necessity, and the highest degree of certainty does not exist.

Galileo's reason is its own judge; in case of conflict with any other authority, even religious, he should not concede:

It seems to me that in discussing natural problems we should not start from the authority of the texts of Holy Scripture, but from sensory experiences and necessary proofs... I believe that everything concerning the actions of nature that is accessible to our eyes or can be understood by logical proofs should not excite doubts, much less be condemned on the basis of the texts of the Holy Scriptures, perhaps even misunderstood.
God reveals himself to us no less in natural phenomena than in the sayings of Holy Scripture... It would be dangerous to attribute to Holy Scripture any judgment that has been at least once challenged by experience.

Ancient and medieval philosophers proposed various “metaphysical entities” (substances) to explain natural phenomena, to which far-fetched properties were attributed. Galileo was not happy with this approach:

I consider the search for an essence to be a vain and impossible task, and the efforts expended are equally futile both in the case of distant celestial substances and in the case of the nearest and elementary ones; and it seems to me that both the substance of the Moon and the Earth, both sunspots and ordinary clouds are equally unknown... [But] if we search in vain for the substance of sunspots, this does not mean that we cannot study some of their characteristics, for example, place, movement, shape, size, opacity, ability to change, their formation and disappearance.

Descartes rejected this position (his physics focused on finding “principal causes”), but starting with Newton, the Galilean approach became dominant.

Galileo is considered one of the founders of mechanism. This scientific approach views the Universe as a gigantic mechanism, and complex natural processes as combinations of the simplest causes, the main of which is mechanical movement. The analysis of mechanical motion lies at the heart of Galileo's work. He wrote in “Assay Master”:

I will never demand from external bodies anything other than size, figure, quantity, and more or less rapid movements in order to explain the occurrence of the sensations of taste, smell and sound; I think that if we eliminated ears, tongues, noses, then only figures, numbers, movements would remain, but not smells, tastes and sounds, which, in my opinion, outside a living being are nothing more than empty names .

To design an experiment and to understand its results, some preliminary theoretical model of the phenomenon under study is needed, and Galileo considered its basis to be mathematics, the conclusions of which he considered as the most reliable knowledge: the book of nature is “written in the language of mathematics”; “Whoever wants to solve problems in the natural sciences without the help of mathematics poses an insoluble problem. You should measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not.”

Galileo viewed the experiment not as a simple observation, but as a meaningful and thoughtful question asked of nature. He also allowed thought experiments if their results were beyond doubt. At the same time, he clearly understood that experience itself does not provide reliable knowledge, and the answer received from nature must be subject to analysis, the result of which can lead to a reworking of the original model or even replacing it with another. Thus, the effective way of knowledge, according to Galileo, consists in a combination of the synthetic (in his terminology, composite method) and analytical ( resolutive method), sensual and abstract. This position, supported by Descartes, has since been established in science. Thus, science received its own method, its own criterion of truth and secular character.

Mechanics

Physics and mechanics in those years were studied from the works of Aristotle, which contained metaphysical discussions about the “primary causes” of natural processes. In particular, Aristotle argued:

The speed of falling is proportional to the weight of the body.
Movement occurs while the “motivating reason” (force) is in effect, and in the absence of force it stops.

While at the University of Padua, Galileo studied inertia and free fall of bodies. In particular, he noticed that the acceleration of gravity does not depend on the weight of the body, thus refuting Aristotle's first statement.

In his last book, Galileo formulated the correct laws of falling: speed increases in proportion to time, and path increases in proportion to the square of time. In accordance with his scientific method, he immediately provided experimental data confirming the laws he discovered. Moreover, Galileo also considered (on the 4th day of the Conversations) a generalized problem: to study the behavior of a falling body with a non-zero horizontal initial velocity. He quite correctly assumed that the flight of such a body would be a superposition (superposition) of two “simple movements”: uniform horizontal motion by inertia and uniformly accelerated vertical fall.

Galileo proved that the indicated body, as well as any body thrown at an angle to the horizon, flies in a parabola. In the history of science, this is the first solved problem of dynamics. At the conclusion of the study, Galileo proved that the maximum flight range of an thrown body is achieved for a throw angle of 45° (previously this assumption was made by Tartaglia, who, however, could not strictly substantiate it). Based on his model, Galileo (still in Venice) compiled the first artillery tables.

Galileo also refuted the second of Aristotle’s laws, formulating the first law of mechanics (the law of inertia): in the absence of external forces, the body is either at rest or moving uniformly. What we call inertia, Galileo poetically called “indestructibly imprinted motion.” True, he allowed free movement not only in a straight line, but also in a circle (apparently for astronomical reasons). The correct formulation of the law was later given by Descartes and Newton; nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the very concept of “motion by inertia” was first introduced by Galileo, and the first law of mechanics rightly bears his name.

Galileo is one of the founders of the principle of relativity in classical mechanics, which, in a slightly refined form, became one of the cornerstones of the modern interpretation of this science and was later named in his honor. In his Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, Galileo formulated the principle of relativity as follows:

For objects captured by uniform motion, this latter does not seem to exist and manifests its effect only on things that do not take part in it.

Explaining the principle of relativity, Galileo puts into Salviati’s mouth a detailed and colorful (very typical of the great Italian’s style of scientific prose) description of an imaginary “experiment” carried out in the hold of a ship:

... Stock up on flies, butterflies and other similar small flying insects; Let you also have a large vessel there with water and small fish swimming in it; Next, hang a bucket at the top, from which water will fall drop by drop into another vessel with a narrow neck placed below. While the ship is standing still, watch diligently how small flying animals move at the same speed in all directions of the room; the fish, as you will see, will swim indifferently in all directions; all the falling drops will fall into the substituted vessel... Now make the ship move at low speed and then (if only the movement is uniform and without pitching in one direction or another) in all the named phenomena you will not find the slightest change and you will not be able to determine whether the ship is moving or stationary.

Strictly speaking, Galileo's ship does not move rectilinearly, but along the arc of a large circle of the surface of the globe. Within the framework of the modern understanding of the principle of relativity, the frame of reference associated with this ship will be only approximately inertial, so it is still possible to identify the fact of its movement without referring to external reference points (however, suitable measuring instruments for this appeared only in the 20th century...) .

The discoveries of Galileo listed above, among other things, allowed him to refute many of the arguments of opponents of the heliocentric system of the world, who argued that the rotation of the Earth would noticeably affect the phenomena occurring on its surface. For example, according to geocentrists, the surface of the rotating Earth during the fall of any body would move away from under this body, shifting by tens or even hundreds of meters. Galileo confidently predicted: “Any experiments that should indicate more will be inconclusive.” against, how behind rotation of the Earth."

Galileo published a study of pendulum oscillations and stated that the period of oscillations does not depend on their amplitude (this is approximately true for small amplitudes). He also discovered that the periods of a pendulum's oscillations correlate as the square roots of its length. Galileo's results attracted the attention of Huygens, who used the pendulum regulator (1657) to improve the escapement mechanism of clocks; from this moment on, the possibility of precise measurements in experimental physics arose.

For the first time in the history of science, Galileo raised the question of the strength of rods and beams in bending and thereby laid the foundation for a new science - the strength of materials.

Many of Galileo's arguments are sketches of physical laws discovered much later. For example, in the Dialogue he reports that the vertical speed of a ball rolling over the surface of a complex terrain depends only on its current height, and illustrates this fact with several thought experiments; Now we would formulate this conclusion as the law of conservation of energy in a gravitational field. Similarly, he explains the (theoretically undamped) swing of a pendulum.

In statics, Galileo introduced the fundamental concept moment of force(Italian momento).

Astronomy

In 1609, Galileo independently built his first telescope with a convex lens and a concave eyepiece. The tube provided approximately threefold magnification. Soon he managed to build a telescope that gave a magnification of 32 times. Note that the term telescope It was Galileo who introduced it into science (the term itself was suggested to him by Federico Cesi, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei). A number of Galileo's telescopic discoveries contributed to the establishment of the heliocentric system of the world, which Galileo actively promoted, and to the refutation of the views of the geocentrists Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Galileo made the first telescopic observations of celestial bodies on January 7, 1610. These observations showed that the Moon, like the Earth, has a complex topography - covered with mountains and craters. Galileo explained the ashen light of the Moon, known since ancient times, as a result of sunlight reflected by the Earth hitting our natural satellite. All this refuted Aristotle’s teaching about the opposition of “earthly” and “heavenly”: the Earth became a body of fundamentally the same nature as the celestial bodies, and this, in turn, served as an indirect argument in favor of the Copernican system: if other planets move, then naturally assume that the Earth is also moving. Galileo also discovered the libration of the Moon and quite accurately estimated the height of the lunar mountains.

Jupiter has discovered its own moons - four satellites. Thus, Galileo refuted one of the arguments of opponents of heliocentrism: the Earth cannot revolve around the Sun, since the Moon itself rotates around it. After all, Jupiter obviously had to revolve either around the Earth (as in the geocentric system) or around the Sun (as in the heliocentric system). A year and a half of observations allowed Galileo to estimate the orbital period of these satellites (1612), although acceptable accuracy of the estimate was achieved only in Newton's era. Galileo proposed using observations of the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites to solve the critical problem of determining longitude at sea. He himself was unable to develop an implementation of such an approach, although he worked on it until the end of his life; Cassini was the first to achieve success (1681), but due to the difficulties of observations at sea, Galileo’s method was used mainly by land expeditions, and after the invention of the marine chronometer (mid-18th century), the problem was closed.

Galileo also discovered (independently from Johann Fabricius and Herriot) sunspots. The existence of spots and their constant variability refuted Aristotle’s thesis about the perfection of the heavens (as opposed to the “sublunary world”). Based on the results of their observations, Galileo concluded that the Sun rotates around its axis, estimated the period of this rotation and the position of the Sun's axis.

Galileo discovered that Venus changes phases. On the one hand, this proved that it shines with reflected light from the Sun (about which there was no clarity in the astronomy of the previous period). On the other hand, the order of phase changes corresponded to the heliocentric system: in Ptolemy’s theory, Venus as the “lower” planet was always closer to the Earth than the Sun, and “full Venus” was impossible.

Galileo also noted the strange “appendages” of Saturn, but the discovery of the ring was prevented by the weakness of the telescope and the rotation of the ring, which hid it from an earthly observer. Half a century later, Saturn's ring was discovered and described by Huygens, who had a 92x telescope at his disposal.

Historians of science discovered that on December 28, 1612, Galileo observed the then-undiscovered planet Neptune and sketched its position among the stars, and on January 29, 1613, he observed it in conjunction with Jupiter. However, Galileo did not identify Neptune as a planet.

Galileo showed that when observed through a telescope, the planets are visible as disks, the apparent sizes of which in different configurations change in the same ratio as follows from the Copernican theory. However, the diameter of stars does not increase when observed with a telescope. This refuted estimates of the apparent and actual size of stars, which were used by some astronomers as an argument against the heliocentric system.

The Milky Way, which to the naked eye looks like a continuous glow, broke up into individual stars (which confirmed Democritus’ guess), and a huge number of previously unknown stars became visible.

In his Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, Galileo explained in detail (through the character Salviati) why he preferred the Copernican system to the Ptolemaic one:

Venus and Mercury never find themselves in opposition, that is, in the side of the sky opposite the Sun. This means that they revolve around the Sun, and their orbit passes between the Sun and the Earth.
Mars has oppositions. In addition, Galileo did not identify phases on Mars that were noticeably different from the full illumination of the visible disk. From this and from an analysis of changes in brightness during the movement of Mars, Galileo concluded that this planet also revolves around the Sun, but in this case the Earth is located inside its orbit. He made similar conclusions for Jupiter and Saturn.

Thus, it remains to choose between two systems of the world: the Sun (with planets) revolves around the Earth or the Earth revolves around the Sun. The observed pattern of planetary movements in both cases is the same, this is guaranteed by the principle of relativity formulated by Galileo himself. Therefore, additional arguments are needed for the choice, among which Galileo cites the greater simplicity and naturalness of the Copernican model.

An ardent supporter of Copernicus, Galileo, however, rejected Kepler's system of elliptical planetary orbits. Note that it was Kepler's laws, together with Galileo's dynamics, that led Newton to the law of universal gravitation. Galileo had not yet realized the idea of the force interaction of celestial bodies, considering the movement of the planets around the Sun as their natural property; in this he unwittingly found himself closer to Aristotle than perhaps he wanted.

Galileo explained why the earth's axis does not rotate when the earth revolves around the sun; To explain this phenomenon, Copernicus introduced a special “third movement” of the Earth. Galileo showed experimentally that the axis of a freely moving top maintains its direction by itself (“Letters to Ingoli”):

A similar phenomenon is evidently found in any body that is in a freely suspended state, as I have shown to many; and you yourself can verify this by placing a floating wooden ball in a vessel of water, which you take in your hands, and then, stretching them out, you begin to rotate around yourself; you will see how this ball will rotate around itself in the direction opposite to your rotation; it will complete its full rotation at the same time as you complete yours.

At the same time, Galileo made a serious mistake in believing that the phenomenon of tides proved the rotation of the Earth around its axis. However, he also gives other serious arguments in favor of the daily rotation of the Earth:

It is difficult to agree that the entire Universe makes a daily revolution around the Earth (especially considering the colossal distances to the stars); it is more natural to explain the observed picture by the rotation of the Earth alone. The synchronous participation of planets in daily rotation would also violate the observed pattern, according to which the further a planet is from the Sun, the slower it moves.
Even the huge Sun has been found to have axial rotation.

Galileo describes here a thought experiment that could prove the rotation of the Earth: a cannon shell or a falling body deviates slightly from the vertical during the fall; however, the calculation he provided shows that this deviation is negligible. He made the correct observation that the rotation of the Earth should influence the dynamics of the winds. All these effects were discovered much later.

Mathematics

His research on the outcomes of throwing dice belongs to probability theory. His “Discourse on the Game of Dice” (“Considerazione sopra il giuoco dei dadi”, date of writing unknown, published in 1718) provides a fairly complete analysis of this problem.

In “Conversations on Two New Sciences,” he formulated the “Galileo's Paradox”: there are as many natural numbers as there are their squares, although most of the numbers are not squares. This prompted further research into the nature of infinite sets and their classification; The process ended with the creation of set theory.

Other achievements

Galileo invented:

Hydrostatic balances for determining the specific gravity of solids. Galileo described their design in a treatise "La bilancetta" (1586).
The first thermometer, still without a scale (1592).
Proportional compass used in drafting (1606).
Microscope, poor quality (1612); With its help, Galileo studied insects.

-- Some of Galileo's inventions --

Galileo telescope (modern copy)

Galileo's thermometer (modern copy)

Proportional compass

"Galileo Lens", Museum Galileo (Florence)

He also studied optics, acoustics, the theory of color and magnetism, hydrostatics, strength of materials, and problems of fortification. Conducted an experiment to measure the speed of light, which he considered finite (without success). He was the first to experimentally measure the density of air, which Aristotle considered equal to 1/10 the density of water; Galileo's experiment gave a value of 1/400, much closer to the true value (about 1/770). He clearly formulated the law of indestructibility of matter.

Students

Among Galileo's students were:

Borelli, who continued the study of Jupiter's moons; he was one of the first to formulate the law of universal gravitation. Founder of biomechanics.
Viviani, Galileo's first biographer, was a talented physicist and mathematician.
Cavalieri, the forerunner of mathematical analysis, in whose fate Galileo's support played a huge role.
Castelli, creator of hydrometry.
Torricelli, who became an outstanding physicist and inventor.

Memory

Named after Galileo:

The “Galilean satellites” of Jupiter discovered by him.
Impact crater on the Moon (-63º, +10º).
Crater on Mars (6ºN, 27ºW)
An area with a diameter of 3200 km on Ganymede.
Asteroid (697) Galilee.
The principle of relativity and coordinate transformation in classical mechanics.
NASA's Galileo space probe (1989-2003).
European project "Galileo" satellite navigation system.
The unit of acceleration “Gal” (Gal) in the CGS system, equal to 1 cm/sec².
Scientific entertainment and educational television program Galileo, shown in several countries. In Russia it has been broadcast since 2007 on STS.
Airport in Pisa.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first observations, the UN General Assembly declared 2009 the Year of Astronomy.

Personality assessments

Lagrange assessed Galileo's contribution to theoretical physics as follows:

It required exceptional fortitude to extract the laws of nature from concrete phenomena that were always before everyone's eyes, but the explanation of which nevertheless eluded the inquisitive gaze of philosophers.

Einstein called Galileo “the father of modern science” and described him as follows:

Before us appears a man of extraordinary will, intelligence and courage, capable, as a representative of rational thinking, to withstand those who, relying on the ignorance of the people and the idleness of teachers in church vestments and university robes, are trying to strengthen and defend their position. His extraordinary literary talent allows him to address the educated people of his time in such a clear and expressive language that he manages to overcome the anthropocentric and mythical thinking of his contemporaries and restore to them the objective and causal perception of the cosmos, lost with the decline of Greek culture.

The eminent physicist Stephen Hawking, born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death, wrote:

Galileo, perhaps more than any other individual, was responsible for the birth of modern science. The famous dispute with the Catholic Church was central to Galileo's philosophy, for he was one of the first to declare that there was hope for man to understand how the world works, and, moreover, that this could be achieved by observing our real world.
While remaining a devout Catholic, Galileo did not waver in his belief in the independence of science. Four years before his death, in 1642, while still under house arrest, he secretly sent the manuscript of his second major book, “Two New Sciences,” to a Dutch publishing house. It was this work, more than his support of Copernicus, that gave birth to modern science.

In literature and art

Bertolt Brecht. Life of Galileo. Play. - In the book: Bertolt Brecht. Theater. Plays. Articles. Statements. In five volumes. - M.: Art, 1963. - T. 2.
Liliana Cavani (director)."Galileo" (film) (English) (1968). Retrieved March 2, 2009. Archived August 13, 2011.
Joseph Losey (director)."Galileo" (film adaptation of Brecht's play) (English) (1975). Retrieved March 2, 2009. Archived August 13, 2011.
Philip Glass(composer), opera "Galileo".

On bonds and postage stamps

Italy, 2000 lira banknote,
1973

USSR, 1964

Ukraine, 2009

Kazakhstan, 2009

On coins

In 2005, the Republic of San Marino issued a commemorative 2 euro coin in honor of the World Year of Physics.

San Marino, 2005

Myths and alternative versions

Date of death of Galileo and date of birth of Newton

Some popular books claim that Isaac Newton was born exactly on the day of Galileo's death, as if taking the scientific baton from him. This statement is the result of an erroneous confusion between two different calendars - the Gregorian in Italy and the Julian, which was in force in England until 1752. Using the modern Gregorian calendar as a basis, Galileo died on January 8, 1642, and Newton was born almost a year later, on January 4, 1643.

“And yet she spins”

There is a well-known legend according to which, after an ostentatious renunciation, Galileo said: “And yet she turns!” However, there is no evidence of this. As historians have discovered, this myth was put into circulation in 1757 by journalist Giuseppe Baretti and became widely known in 1761 after Baretti's book was translated into French.

Galileo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

According to the biography of Galileo, written by his student and secretary Vincenzo Viviani, Galileo, in the presence of other teachers, threw bodies of different masses simultaneously from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The description of this famous experiment was included in many books, but in the 20th century a number of authors came to the conclusion that it was a legend, based, first of all, on the fact that Galileo himself did not claim in his books that he had conducted this public experiment. Some historians, however, are inclined to believe that this experiment really took place.

It is documented that Galileo measured the time of descent of balls down an inclined plane (1609). It should be taken into account that there were no accurate clocks at that time (Galileo used an imperfect water clock and his own pulse to measure time), so rolling balls was more convenient for measurements than falling. At the same time, Galileo verified that the rolling laws he obtained were not qualitatively dependent on the angle of inclination of the plane, and, therefore, they could be extended to the case of falling.

The principle of relativity and the movement of the Sun around the Earth

At the end of the 19th century, Newton's concept of absolute space was subjected to devastating criticism, and at the beginning of the 20th century, Henri Poincaré and Albert Einstein proclaimed the universal principle of relativity: there is no point in asserting that a body is at rest or in motion unless it is further clarified about what it is at rest or in motion. In substantiating this fundamental position, both authors used polemically sharp formulations. Thus, Poincaré in his book “Science and Hypothesis” (1900) wrote that the statement “The Earth rotates” does not make any sense, and Einstein and Infeld in the book “The Evolution of Physics” indicated that the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus are simply two different agreements about coordinate systems, and their struggle is meaningless.

In connection with these new views, the question was repeatedly discussed in the popular press: was Galileo right in his persistent struggle? For example, in 1908, an article appeared in the French newspaper Matin, where the author stated: “Poincaré, the greatest mathematician of the century, considers Galileo’s persistence to be erroneous.” Poincare, however, back in 1904 wrote a special article “Does the Earth Rotate?” with a refutation of the opinion attributed to him about the equivalence of the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus, and in the book “The Value of Science” (1905) he stated: “The truth for which Galileo suffered remains the truth.”

As for the above remark by Infeld and Einstein, it relates to the general theory of relativity and means the fundamental admissibility of any frame of reference. However, this does not imply their physical (or even mathematical) equivalence. From the point of view of a remote observer in a reference system close to the inertial one, the planets of the Solar System still move “according to Copernicus,” and the geocentric coordinate system, although often convenient for an earthly observer, has a limited scope of application. Infeld later admitted that the above phrase from the book “The Evolution of Physics” did not belong to Einstein and was generally poorly formulated, therefore “to conclude from this that the theory of relativity to some extent underestimates the work of Copernicus means making an accusation that is not even worth refuting.” .

In addition, in the Ptolemaic system it would have been impossible to derive Kepler's laws and the law of universal gravitation, therefore, from the point of view of the progress of science, Galileo's struggle was not in vain.

Accusation of atomism

In June 1982, Italian historian Pietro Redondi ( Pietro Redondi) discovered an anonymous denunciation (undated) in the Vatican archives accusing Galileo of defending atomism. Based on this document, he constructed and published the following hypothesis. According to Redondi, the Council of Trent branded atomism as a heresy, and its defense by Galileo in the book “Assay Master” threatened with the death penalty, so Pope Urban, trying to save his friend Galileo, replaced the charge with a safer one - heliocentrism.

Redondi's version, which absolved the Pope and the Inquisition, aroused great interest among journalists, but professional historians quickly and unanimously rejected it. Their refutation is based on the following facts.

There is not a word about atomism in the decisions of the Council of Trent. It is possible to interpret the council's interpretation of the Eucharist as being in conflict with atomism, and such opinions were indeed expressed, but they remained the private opinion of their authors. There was no official church ban on atomism (as opposed to heliocentrism), and there were no legal grounds to judge Galileo for atomism. Therefore, if the Pope really wanted to save Galileo, then he should have done the opposite - replace the accusation of heliocentrism with the accusation of supporting atomism, then, instead of renunciation, Galileo would have gotten off with an admonition, as in 1616. Let us note that it was during these years that Gassendi freely published books promoting atomism, and there were no objections from the church.
Galileo's book The Assayer, which Redondi considers a defense of atomism, dates from 1623, while Galileo's trial took place 10 years later. Moreover, statements in favor of atomism are found in Galileo’s book “Discourse on Bodies Immersed in Water” (1612). They did not arouse any interest in the Inquisition, and none of these books was banned. Finally, after the trial, under the supervision of the Inquisition, Galileo in his last book again talks about atoms - and the Inquisition, which promised to return him to prison for the slightest violation of the regime, does not pay attention to this.
There was no evidence that the denunciation Redondi found had any consequences.

Currently, Redondi's hypothesis is considered unproven among historians and is not discussed. Historian I. S. Dmitriev regards this hypothesis as nothing more than “a historical detective story in the spirit of Dan Brown.” Nevertheless, in Russia this version is still vigorously defended by Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev.

Scientific works

In the original language

Le Opere di Galileo Galilei. - Firenze: G. Barbero Editore, 1929-1939. This is a classic annotated edition of Galileo's works in the original language in 20 volumes (reprint of an earlier collection of 1890-1909), called the “National Edition” (Italian: Edizione Nazionale). Galileo's main works are contained in the first 8 volumes of the publication.
- Volume 1. About movement ( De Motu), around 1590.
- Volume 2. Mechanics ( Le Meccaniche), around 1593.
- Volume 3. Star Messenger ( Sidereus Nuncius), 1610.
- Volume 4. Reasoning about bodies immersed in water ( Discorso intorno alle cose, che stanno in su l'aqua), 1612.
- Volume 5. Letters on sunspots ( Historia e dimostrazioni intorno alle Macchie Solari), 1613.
- Volume 6. Assay master ( Il Saggiatore), 1623.
- Volume 7. Dialogue about two systems of the world ( Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano), 1632.
- Volume 8. Conversations and mathematical proofs of two new sciences ( Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze), 1638.
Lettera al Padre Benedetto Castelli(correspondence with Castelli), 1613.

Translations into Russian

Galileo Galilei. Selected works in two volumes. - M.: Nauka, 1964.
- Volume 1: Star Messenger. Message to Ingoli. Dialogue about two systems of the world. 645 pp.
- Volume 2: Mechanics. About bodies in water. Conversations and mathematical proofs concerning two new branches of science. 574 pp.
- Applications and bibliography:
  - B. G. Kuznetsov. Galileo Galilei (Sketch of life and scientific creativity).
  - L. E. Maistrov. Galileo and the theory of probability.
  - Galileo and Descartes.
  - I. B. Pogrebyssky, U. I. Frankfurt. Galileo and Huygens.
  - L. V. Zhigalova. The first mentions of Galileo in Russian scientific literature.
Galileo Galilei. Dialogue about two systems of the world. - M.-L.: GITTL, 1948.
Galileo Galilei. Mathematical proofs concerning two new branches of science relating to mechanics and local motion. - M.-L.: GITTL, 1934.
Galileo Galilei. Message to Francesco Ingoli. - Collection dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo Galilei, ed. acad. A. M. Dvorkina. - M.-L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1943.
Galileo Galilei. Assay master. - M.: Nauka, 1987. This book was also published under the titles “Assay Scales” and “Assayer”.
Galileo Galilei. Reasoning about bodies floating in water. - In the collection: The beginnings of hydrostatics. Archimedes, Stevin, Galileo, Pascal. - M.-L.: GITTL, 1932. - P. 140-232.

Documentaries

2009 - Galileo Galilei (dir. Alessandra Gigante)