Galileo Galilei Questions?

Question

How did Galileo get punished after he told everyone that the earth revolved around the sun? =) Thanks. -Kay

Answer 1

The Roman Catholic Church was very much opposed to Galileo's proposition because it was against the Bible, which said that the earth was the centre of the Universe. They threatened to kill him if he did not withdraw his words.

Answer 2

I'm sorry because I haven't double checked this but I recall that Galileo was forced to witness a torture as an object lesson to keep his mouth shut. Then, as an object lesson from God to the Catholic Church, Issac Newton was born the year Galileo died. Newton was one of the 10 most intelligent humans to ever live and among his many accomplishments he explained gravitation and the Laws of Motion that describe the true workings of the solar system including the motion of the planets around the sun just as Galileo had proposed. .

Answer 3

Now, let's put this in perspective.

Only one person was put to death for adhering to the heliocentric hypothesis: Giordano Bruno, who also was tried for blasphemy and heresy among other things. His astronomical views were secondary to all the other charges against him.

Galileo was told not to write books about the controversy regarding the heliocentric vs. geocentric models of the Universe, since this was one of the major philosophical schisms that was propelling the protestant movement, and the Pope did not want one of his own people adding to the debate.

Despite agreeing not to, Galileo wrote his "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" in which he made fun of the Pope and his views.

Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition and told to either recant in public or be tortured. Galileo chose to recant.

He was put under the care of his friend, the Archbishop of Siena, but was later allowed to return to his home. Since he was under house arrest, he could not work and his time was devoted to writing one of the most important works in physics, "Two New Sciences", which was the work that described his studies of material and motion.

Had he not been "under arrest", this great work may never have been written.

Answer 4

While in Rome he was also made a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. In 1612, opposition arose to the Sun-centered solar system which Galileo supported. In 1614, from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella, Father Tommaso Caccini (1574-1648) denounced Galileo's opinions on the motion of the Earth, judging them dangerous and close to heresy. Galileo went to Rome to defend himself against these accusations, but, in 1616, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino personally handed Galileo an admonition enjoining him to neither advocate nor teach Copernican astronomy as religious doctrine.

Answer 5

In addition to Geoff's nice answer, I'll mention a few things on who is arguably the father of science. Galileo was intelligent, like his father and some earlier members of the Galileo family. He was or became quite religious as a youth, joining a local monastic order, but his father quickly pulled him from it. Galileo remained a loyal Catholic. He loved math even when it presented little advancement opportunities. He read Euclid on his own and soon gained favor with an important scholar to the Duke. He was a drop-out (sorta) at the U. of Pisa, but a few years later, the U. of P. hired him as their math chair. His math skill soon made him popular, and he advanced into the great chair at the U. of Padua. Galileo gained friendships throughout the region, but he also acquired significant opposition since he questioned Aristotle's work and provided, in some cases, "necessary demonstration" against Aristotle's views, which, unfortunately for Galileo, had become integrated into Christian theology thanks greatly to Thomas Aquinas a few centuries earlier. After publishing his little book, "Sidereal Messenger" (or "Starry Messenger" by other interpretations", in 1610, he gained world fame. Even the Chinese were reading his book. Immediately after learning of the telescope in 1609, he quickly built one that was likely the best in the world at that time. This allowed him to discover mountains and craters on the Moon, the moons of Jupiter, resolve the Milky Way into a vast sea of stars, see the phases of Venus and Mercury, discover that Saturn had "ears" (later determined to be rings), and sunspots. Since the Aristotle/Ptolemy/Aquinas model predicted Venus (and Mercury) could not have all the phases like the Moon, Galileo crushed this model, which made him confident he could also produce "necessary demonstration" that Copernicus model was correct, yet he failed. He had very powerful friends within the Church, and powerful enemies. One pope became both. He certainly had his faults. He never married, yet fathered three kids. He put both is daughters in nuneries -- one against her will -- and both died young. He was brilliant but boastful. He also claimed to be the first at things contrary to the facts. His arrogance was real, but his grasp on the importance of combining math + experimental evidence with a theoretical framework makes him superior, somewhat, to the Gilberts and Bacons of the world. He is, warts and all, a hero to science.

Answer 6

In addition to being ordered to not teach or support the Copernican system, he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. It could have been worse. Some people were executed for the same "crime".

Answer 7

he was about to be hanged or burnt alive, but one of the priests was his friends.

So they decided not to kill him completely, but locked Galileo in a room, and the closed environment slowly led to complete blindness and deafness of Galileo

Answer 8

catholic church shut him down. typical.

he had to recant or face excommunication.

Answer 9

He expressed is opinion on his death bed.