Why was Galileo ordered to recant his heliocentric ideas?

Question

Was he right after all?

Answer 1

Because he could not prove his theories/deductions!@

Answer 2

To answer your second question first, yes, Galileo was right. He didn't have all the details -- that waited until Kepler and Newton (and even Einstein, to an extent) -- but his main idea was right.

In the 1980s, the Catholic Church officially declared that Galileo was right; they exonerated him more than 400 years after the fact!

Now, as to the first question, it was more than just the notion that his ideas countered prevailing Church doctrine. Actually, there was a lot of Church politics involved.

[A few years ago, science writer Dava Sobel wrote a bestseller called "Galileo's Daughter" where she recounted this story.]

Just before Galileo's time, the Polish cleric and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus had his treatise "De Revolutionibus" published while he was on his deathbed. (He wouldn't publish earlier because the Church would condemn it.) This was the book that said the earth and the planets revolve around the sun.

Church doctrine in this area followed Aristotle who taught that the earth was the center of the universe. The ancient astronomer Ptolemy had an earth-centered model which, although complicated, did a pretty good job of describing planetary motion.

Galileo was familiar with Copernicus's work. In addition to being a theoretician, Galileo was a superb experimentalist. He used a new invention, the telescope, to observe four satellites -- the Galilean satellites -- revolving around Jupiter. This contradicted Aristotelian dogma. And his observations of the phases of Venus proved that Venus orbited the sun, not the earth.

Galileo was a well-known, prominent public figure in Italy, and he was well-connected. He wanted to publish, but he was sensitive to Church authority. At the time, Church permission was required for any publication that might have a bearing on official doctrine. Galileo was friendly with a high-ranking cardinal, and he worked out a deal.

The deal was that Galileo could publish, that anything he wrote about the heliocentric theory must be , not presented as truth.

So Galileo wrote his great book, the "Dialogues". He wrote it as a "hypothetical" conversation between three friends. They had fictional names, but one was Galileo himself, arguing the Copernican position; a second was a "neutral" observer; and the third, named "Simplicio" (simpleton) was thinly disguised as the Pope.

In the book, the two main characters argued; the Copernican position won every argument, while Simplicio, arguing the official Aristotelian position, was made to look like a fool. Technically, of course, the argument was purely hypothetical, but when the book came out, Church authorities quickly moved to suppress it. The entire press run sold out on the first day, however.

Galileo was now in trouble. His friend the cardinal had died, and he had made an enemy of the Pope (or the Pope's advisors). Galileo, by now an old man, was hauled before the Inquisition where he officially recanted everything he'd written. The license he had to publish was not found, and a letter he had from the cardinal was disregarded.

Behind Galileo's recantation was the knowledge that, a few years earlier, a prominent priest (I forgot his name) who subscribed to the Copernican theory, was burned at the stake for his beliefs.

Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest. I think a death sentence was commuted. He was allowed to have visitors, and as I recall, several prominent scientists did visit. He was not, however, allowed to discuss whether the earth revolved around the sun.

As best I can recall, that's the Galileo story.

Answer 3

Yes of course he was right. The heliocentric model did not fit within the current teachings of the church at that time. Religious doctrine stated that the Earth was the center of the universe. Galileo disputed this and fell out of favor with the church.

Answer 4

The reason that he was ordered to recant his ideas is because they flew in the face of the church accepted theory that the earth was the center of the universe. Because of this fact he was ordered to recant his findings or be excommunicated.

Answer 5

His theories went against Catholic tradition at the time. He was forced to either admit that the Earth could not possibly orbit around the Sun or to be excommunicated from the church.

While his concept was correct, the plants do not truly orbit the sun on a circular path. The path is elliptical. While I'm not a big WIKIPEDIA fan, check out the link below.

Answer 6

Yes, he was forced to recant (publicly) under threat of death by the so called "Holy Inquisition"