Talk:Galileo Galilei/Archive 8

Effort

The information about Protestant opposition to Copernicanism has been removed from the article on Galileo. It has not been added to any other article. This gives the impression that the effort is designed to suppress the information. It appears not to have been added to the articles on Luther or Copernicus, where it would be perfectly relevant. We are told that the details of heliocentrism were not available in 1539. They had been available for centuries, since the days of Aristarchus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.51.240 (talk) 10:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The information was not relevant here. That is why it was removed. The cited individuals all died prior to Galileo's work. If you want to update other articles with useful encyclopedic information, go right ahead. Take account of the information and references provided here; it may be useful. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 10:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

At the moment, the Luther and Copernicus articles are protected, making it difficult for me to edit them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.51.240 (talk) 10:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I have added indentation to your comments. You can make proposals on the talk page. That is a very good idea. Articles get protected because of edit wars, and in such cases it is really a good idea to run new ideas past the community on the talk page. There will be a lot of expertise there, and different perspectives, than will help tighten up any additions you are considering. Welcome to Wikipedia, by they way. You've picked some pretty heavy articles for your starting out! —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 10:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I use twenty IP numbers, giving the impression that I have just appeared on Wikipedia.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:25, 11 September

• Please sign your comments on talk pages. It is very easy to do and has many advantages. It is also considered a standard by the Wikipedia guidelines that all users should follow. You can get all the details by following the link at the beginning of this comment.
• When you use spaces to indent your comments, please include carriage returns (newlines) after every 80 or so characters of text. Without carriage returns your comment will consist of a single line and overflow the right end of the surrounding box if the text is longer than about 90 characters. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to read. If the text is much longer than that it will extend beyond the right edge of the browser page making it even more difficult to read.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

SineBot signs automatically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 08:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It should not have to. You should do it; programs are less reliable. I have put proper indentation on your two most recent comments here, replacing the leading white space. It is not just the IP address that make you look new to wikipedia. It is the way you don't follow very simple conventions for talk pages. You use white space in the front of comments, and you don't sign appropriately. Please, use the proper formatting conventions. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 10:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Alleged torture

There is nothing in the article about the theory that Galileo was tortured.

The alleged torture was not mentioned in the 17th., 18th. or early 19th. centuries. Torture is treated as a possibility by A.D.White in the 1897 era. Berry quotes the exact Latin words with which Galileo was threatened with torture but says nothing about actual torture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.34.71 (talk) 13:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

David Brewster, in 1855, seems to have been the first to claim that Galileo was tortured. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.50.66 (talk) 13:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any specific suggestions to make on the content of the article? As far as I know the idea that Galileo was tortured has not been taken seriously by any professional historian of science for at least 50 years, and probably not since the publication of Favaro's monumental edition of his works nearly 100 years ago. Galileo's dispute with the Church is now extremely well-documented by copious and widely available copies of primary sources and many reliable secondary sources. The fact that Galileo was never tortured has been established about as firmly as it is possible for any negative historical proposition ever can be.

I believe the current article does need a short summary of what went on during Galileo's trial, including an accurate explanation of why he was threatened with torture. Contrary to a widely held misconception this was not done to force him to recant (he had already done that), but to test the sincerity of his preceding testimony.

A short account of the evolution of historical views of Galileo's conflict with the Church, including 19th-century accusations that he had been tortured, might be worth including in the Galileo affair article. The definitive reference here is Maurice Finocchiaro's Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992. Until I've read it I wouldn't consider attempting to write such an account myself.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 15:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Church controversy in lead

I have amended some recent edits to the lead by Michelet (see below). In my amendments I have tried to retain as much as possible of the gist of them which are indisputably accurate. However it seems to me that the result is a highly unbalanced lead which gives unnecessary weight to the Church controversy. I preferred the lead as it stood before Michelet's edits, and I think it would be much better if the extra material were moved to an appropriate part of the body of the article or to the Galileo affair article (if indeed it is not already there, which I haven't yet checked).

The main reason for my amendments to the edits is that parts of them were inaccurate. Specifically:

"[The geocentric view] was considered by scholars to be backed by the Scripture"

This is an at least disputable over-generalisation and uses a form of wording that needs to be backed up by reliable sources. I have replaced it with a less general statement and provided a good source.

"... and his defense of heliocentrism as being an indisputable truth, ..."

This is a standard furphy of the less reliable apologetics literature. I have never been able to find support for the claim in the primary or any reputable secondary literature. At the very least it is not NPOV. At the time of the condemnation of Copernicanism in 1616 Galileo's defence of Copernicanism had consisted of:

• Three brief remarks in The Starry Messenger indicating that Galileo himself was convinced that the Copernican model was largely correct.
• The following statement from his Letters on Sunspots

"And perhaps this planet also [viz. Saturn], no less than horned Venus, harmonises with the great Copernican system, to the universal revelation of which doctrines propitious breezes are seen to be directed towards us, leaving little fear of clouds or crosswinds."

• Several letters written in response to alarming, scripturally motivated attacks on both Copernicanism and himself personally, including his denuncation to the Inquisition by two Dominican friars at the beginning of 1615. These writings consisted of:

his Letter to Castelli. This was private letter, although copies of it were circulated amongst Galileo's friends and supporters, and one of these eventually wound up in the hands of his enemies;

the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, an expanded version of his Letter to Castelli. Galileo started this in late 1614 or early 1615 in response to the alarming incidents which had occurred at that time. He had intended to circulate this widely amongst his friends and supporters, and possibly even to have it published. However, Copernicanism was condemned by the Congregation of the Index before he had had a chance to do so, and it does not seem to have circulated much, if at all, at that time. It was not published until 1636;

a response to Bellarmine's Letter to Foscarini. This was never published in Galileo's lifetime and he does not appear to have sent copies to anyone;

a long letter to Cardinal Alessandro Orsini containing a discourse on the tides, which Galileo had set down in writing at the Cardinal's request;

much of his correspondence for the year 1615. Some of this is also contained in volume 5 of the Edizione Nazionale of his works.

• A round of lobbying in person in Rome at the end of 1615 and beginning of 1616 in an attempt to clear himself of suspicions of unorthodoxy and to stave off an anticipated condemnation of Copernicanism.

With the exception of the less important items of correspondence, English translations of all the above-mentioned writings have been given by Stillman Drake in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo and Maurice Finoccharo in The Galileo Affair--a documentary history. I have read them all, and not one of them contains any claim by Galileo that the evidence for Copernicanism is conclusive, let alone that it was an "indisputable truth." Neither have I seen this claim made in any other works by professional Galilean scholars that I have read, including Stillman Drake's Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography and Galileo: A Very Short Introduction, Michael Sharratt's Galileo--Decisive Innovator and Richard Blackwell's Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible.

"... resulted in his first condemnation of 1616 ..."

Neither Galileo himself nor any of his works were condemned in 1616. He was merely warned that the Inquisition had determined that heliocentrism was false and contrary to Scripture and that as a consequence he could not hold or defend it. It is possible (or perhaps probable—there is much controversy over this point) that he was also served with a formal injunction not to teach it "in any way whaterver, either orally or in writing".

" ... according to which he was to present the heliocentric model as being only an hypothesis. ..."

This is at least misleading because of the ambiguity of the word "hypothesis" as it was understood at the time. The decision of the Inquisition meant that the only way Copernicanism could be discussed that would be acceptable to the Church was as a convenient mathematical fiction that was nevertheless false.

"The publication of his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was judged in 1633 to be an infringement of the 1616 court decision,..."

There was no "court" case in 1616. During 1615 the Inquisition investigated two complaints against Galileo, but found insufficient evidence to charge him with anything. As a consequence of its investigations (and perhaps other incidents) the Congregation of the Index issued the edict in which Copernicanism was condemned. —David Wilson (talk · cont) 16:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the two inquisition decisions are presented as though the church wanted to defend the Ptolemaic system, which is at best hasty presentation, and probably a POV construction, justifying my "bold" modifications.

As I understand it, the sketch is (1) Galileo had a very high idea of himself (he could, of course) and was very polemical in his defending the Copernican views, which upset his opponents. (2) Ptolemaic oriented scholars being reduced at quia magister dixit, transfered the (scientific and scholar) debate in the theological field by backing the Ptolemaic system on its coherence with the scriptures. (3) The church (inquisition) being asked to investigate a charge of heresy, had to give an answer by examining both the cosmology and the theology. (4) Bellarmino examined the Copernican cosmology and concluded (correctly) that it was indeed useful for practical usage, but not backed by a decisive proof. (5) The 1616 decision therefore ordered Galileo to present Copernican theory as an hypothesis (under prison penalty), and warned him that this theory contradicted the literal meaning of scriptures. (6) The dialogue publication 17 years later was both a POV presentation of the Copernican theory, and felt as an insult by the pope (up to then his protector): the 1616 threat was applied, and Galileo sentenced to prison (which the pope immediately changed to assigned residence).

Indeed, the distinction between "truth", "error" and "working hypothesis" is a modern one, and the way inquisition formulated it is black-and-white (quite normal for Dominicans, btw ;o): since Copernican views have not been proven "true", they were to be considered "false" - in-between status was apparently nonexistent at that time; but the prohibition had been not to teach them as being true, which was the best they could formulate it. These reflections on what is Truth and what is certain and what is proven in science and philosophy lead to Cartesianism, btw, so in its very special way, the Galileo affair has also been very beneficial to science...

The big picture, as I understand it (by reading the article, mostly), is that the church was involved in a scholar dispute, first issued a moderate decision in 1616, and then sanctioned Galileo for not respecting it in 1633. This clearly shows the problem of having an interference between research and juridical sanction, but for the Catholic church it was not a problem of faith per se (Bellarmino was open-minded and ready to accept a decisive proof, had Galileo presented one)- the link between faith and cosmology was made by scholars because of scholar disputes, not the other way around, and presenting it as an opposition "of the Church" (as an institution, because of catholic dogmas) seems POV and not backed by facts.

Galileo went twice before the inquisition, and in both cases, the real question is: what was the charge? Inquisition could not care less about Copernicus or Ptolemy, this was outside its jurisdiction. IMHO, the first 1616 charge had been statements about "truth" that could be interpreted as challenging the faith, and the second 1633 charge was simply not to respect the 1616 decision - a kind of "contempt of court", hence the expression.

Now, there is no reason of course to upset the equilibrium of the article. The 1616-1633 affairs can be introduced in the main article, and detailed in the Galileo affair one, no problem. Feel free to correct me - English not being my native language, I won't object to corrections anyway ;o) and I must take time to read the links you provided. Michelet-密是力-Me laisser un message 06:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Michelet wrote:

It seems to me that the two inquisition decisions are presented as though the church wanted to defend the Ptolemaic system, ...

If you can put your finger on exactly what it is in the article that gave you this impression then it definitely needs to be corrected, since it is certainly false that the Church "wanted to defend the Ptolemaic system". I am however completely baffled as to what could have given you that impression. The Ptolemaic system is only mentioned twice in the article—once (slightly inaccurately) as a target of Galileo's opposition after his discovery of the moons of Jupiter, and a second time as making incorrect predictions about the phases of Venus. I can't see how either of those references implies that "the church wanted to defend the Ptolemaic system."

Neither does stating the fact that the Church banned Copernicanism in 1616 at all imply that it wanted to defend the Ptolemaic system. The decree of the Congregation of the Index which instituted the ban merely described the "false Pythagorean doctrine ... that the earth moves and the sun is motionless" as "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture". Thus any physical theory that was both heliodynamic and geostatic would have been acceptable to the Church. At the time there were at least two other of these available besides the Ptolemaic—namely, Tycho Brahe's geoheliocentric theory and the Eudoxan/Callipan/Aristotelian theory of concentric spheres.

... presenting it as an opposition "of the Church" (as an institution, because of catholic dogmas) seems POV and not backed by facts.

The earlier lead of the article did not claim or imply that the Church's opposition to heliocentrism was "dogma". It stated, quite correctly, that in 1616 the Church had condemned Copernicanism as contrary to Scripture. The decision to do so was taken at a meeting of the Inquisition presided over by the Pope on February 25th, 1616, and promulgated by the Congregation of the Index on March 5th. These events and their consequences are copiously documented in any number of good secondary sources by eminent experts on the history of the affair (the collection of articles in McMullin (2005) for example). Your objection to this wording appears to be based either on misinformation or original research.

Since the earlier lead was concise and accurate, and the current one is not, I have now restored a slightly amended version of the earlier one with citations to two reliable modern secondary sources. If you wish to alter the wording again, please discuss it here first.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 20:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Your formulation of the lead is incorrect and unfortunately leads to a POV presentation: "the Catholic Church's prohibiting the advocacy of heliocentrism as potentially factual, because it considered this contrary to Scripture" exactly means that the reason of Galileo's problem is that the catholic church condemns a scientific theory because it is contrary to the scriptures - which is POV and has not been the case. Please check the documents of the Galileo trial (available in the reference I provided and you supressed), not second-hand interpretations (like the one in the reference you preserved), which are potentially biaised. Michelet-密是力-Me laisser un message 06:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your restraint in your last edits of 16:31, October 2. While the wording is not quite as tight as I would like, it is at least accurate and reasonably concise.

I'm afraid I am having trouble following how you arrive at your conclusion that what I wrote was not NPOV. The statement which I had placed in the lead represents a POV shared by a large number of experts in the subject, two of whom I cited. I know of no expert on the subject who would disagree with it (please feel free to cite one, if you know of any). That you disagree with it is irrelevant. You are of course perfectly entitled to include contrary POVs in the article if you can provide reliable authorititave secondary sources to show that they are held by a significant number of experts (or even just a single prominent expert) in the subject. You are not entitled to delete or modify a properly attributed and documented significant POV simply because you disagree with it.

I am quite familiar with the documents in the web-site you linked to. As I have already mentioned above, I have actually read the whole of the book of Finocchiaro's from which they have been extracted. I am completely baffled as to why you think any of those documents contradict the claim that the reason the Church condemned Copernicanism was because it regarded heliocentrism as contrary to Scripture. Let's look at the text of some of those documents (bolding mine):

From the Consultants' report on February 24th, 1616

"(1) The sun is the center of the world and completely devoid of local motion.

Assessement: All said that this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and the doctors of theology"

Now this is merely an advisory opinion of the Consultants, which the Church was free to accept or reject as it saw fit. However, on the following day a meeting of the Inquisition presided over by the Pope did accept a slightly watered down version of this report and required that Galileo be officially warned of the consequences of that decision (see the Inquisition Minutes of February 25th). One of these consequences was a an official decree of the Congregation of the Index which read in part:

"This Holy Congregation has also learned about the spreading and acceptance by many of the false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture, that the earth moves and the sun is motionless, which is also taught by Nicholaus Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres and by Diego de Zuniga's On Job. .... Therefore, in order that this opinion may not creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Congregation has decided that the books by Nicolaus Copernicus ... and Diego de Zuniga ... be suspended until corrected; but that the book of the Carmelite Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini be completely prohibited and condemned; and that all other books which teach the same be likewise prohibited, according to whether with the present decree it prohibits, condemns, and suspends them respectively."

In the certificate Bellarmine gave to Galileo on May 26th he describes the officially mandated warning which he gave to Galileo in these terms:

" .. he has only been notified of the declaration made by the Holy Father and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, whose content is that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus (that the earth moves around the sun and the sun stands at the center of the world without moving from east to west) is contrary to Holy Scripture and therefore cannot be defended or held."

And from the Inquisition's sentence of Galileo on June 22nd 1633:

"Furthermore, in order to completely eliminate such a pernicious doctrine, and not let it creep any further to the great detriment of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation of the Index issued a decree which prohibited books treating of such a doctrine and declared it false and wholly contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture.

"And whereas a book has appeared here lately, printed in Florence last year, whose inscription showed that you were the author, ... , the said book was diligently examined and found to violate explicitly the above-mentioned injunction given to you; for in the same book you have defended the said opinion already condemned and so declared to your face, ..."

On the face of it seems to me that these documents are completely consistent with the claim that the Church did condemn Copernicanism on the grounds that it was contrary to Scripture, and, as I have already said, I am completely baffled as to why you would think otherwise.

But in any case, these documents are translations of primary sources. Conclusions based on the interpretation of such sources are required by Wikipedia policy to be supported by reliable secondary sources.

- which is POV and has not been the case.

How do you know it "has not been the case"? So far you have presented no evidence except your own unsupported and completely baffling interpretation of a small selection of primary sources.

... not second-hand interpretations (like the one in the reference you preserved), which are potentially biaised.

Any sources are "potentially" biased. I see no reason to accept your otherwise unsupported and completely baffling interpretation of a small selection of primary sources, when it contradicts a large number of very good secondary sources by experts on the subject. I gave secondary sources because the statement which they were supporting can only be justified by synthesis and evaluation of a large number of facts derived from primary sources, which is exactly what these secondary sources do. Sources cited in support of such statements are required by Wikpedia policy to be reliable secondary sources. The authors of the cited sources are Michael Sharratt and Ernan McMullin, both widely acknowledged experts on Galileo. They are also both Catholic priests, so I see no reason to cast aspersions on their knowledge of the motives and actions of the Catholic Church.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 17:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, David,

The evidence is, for instance, in the very quotations you gave: "this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and the doctors of theology". Just read it, emphasis should not only be on the points that attract your attention. What do they say? Three very different things.

• First, "this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy", which must probably be understood as "natural philosophy" at that time. This relates to the problem that Galileo's propositions were unconfirmed and insufficiently backed by decisive evidence - which is was factual at that time, and remained so for two centuries - no decisive proof. In other words, there was no "reason" to adhere to the Copernican system given the available data, and given the commonly accepted cosmology.
• Second, "it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words" which is once again factual, and can of course still be verified. The word "literal" is important, since it is a long established tradition (in catholic Bible studies) to distinguish different level in scripture interpretation. The literal meaning of scriptures could be reinterpreted in view of factual evidences (as Bellarmino -inquisitor, but also cardinal, saint, doctor of the Church...- commented), as long as there was a reason to do so - but point 1 was, there was not such reason at that time.
• Third, "this proposition is [...] formally heretical". Indeed: if someone pretending to be a catholic goes on suggesting that what is written in the scriptures is false, and is not backed by good (scientific) reasons to do so, the possible reason might be that the argument is in fact used in the theological field, to back some kind of theological contest - this is the definition of an heresy. But they did not even admit that it was heretical, just stated that the form of it was - it could, indeed, be interpreted as a sign of heretical intends. This justified indeed that inquisition examined the case (which was the question they had to answer), otherwise it would just have been yet another dispute between scholars. This statement is essentially correct, though it would be judged as far-fetched in present times (and the "formally" term suggests it was felt far-fetched even at that time). But please note the justification given: once the assessment on cosmology has been made and inasmuch as the theory appears to be not reasonable, then (only) the question of heresy becomes legitimate and may be answered (concluding it is formally heretical, given the context).

You can do exactly the same analysis, for instance, on the text of Galileo's retraction, or on most of the documents of the Galileo affair.

Now, if you account for that decision by saying "the Catholic Church's prohibiting the advocacy of heliocentrism as potentially factual, because it considered this contrary to Scripture", two important points are omitted in the Church's judgment - the first, and the third. By omitting the first point, the Church is presented as neglecting evidence to preserve the scriptures, which is ridiculous (obscurantism, and so on). By omitting the third, the Church is presented as arbitrarily interfering in scientific debates with no reason (arbitrary,...), when there was a very logical (and legal) reason to do so. (And as to the second point, omitting the "literal" precision suggests the Church considers the literal sense only, like fundamentalists would, which has never been the case). In both cases, a POV presentation of the Church's position is favored - hence my criticism.

This POV may be shared by a number of experts - who cares? It is still POV, detrimental for the Church, and not backed by factual evidence - so this has not its place on wikipedia, and let's have a NPOV presentation of the case, according to local policies. Though you may want, of course, to sate that "the idea that Galileo was condemned by the church because he endangered the literal reading of the scriptures" has been widely spread amongst scholars. Good point, and obviously factual - but then, why was such a false opinion so widespread? Make your guess. This may justify a section of its own, but it would probably be attacked under the "no personal work" rule, so... ;o) best to have a break on that.

Michelet-密是力-Me laisser un message 22:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ex cathedra

The doctrine of papal infallibility / speaking ex cathedra wasn't defined until the First Vatican Council in the 19th century, and as such, I'm removing it from the article (as it would've had no impact on Galileo's teachings.)

--Falkan 23:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

 There is so much vandalism in the Galileo article that it should be at least semi-protected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.255.133 (talk) 10:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Previous semi-protection was lifted on October 8th. I have now requested that it be reimposed.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for assistance

there is information about Galileo also in Zaza language however in would list sees one not please assistance...

http://diq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

I legend vilen now thanks for its assistance. A Zaza. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.245.207.18 (talk) 18:57, 21 October, 2007 (UTC)

Done (I think—assuming I have correctly understood the request).

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 16:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Banning of Sidereus Nuncius

We say:

• He was formally rehabilitated in 1741, when Pope Benedict XIV authorized the publication of Galileo's complete scientific works (a censored edition had been published in 1718) ... ’’.

Did this "complete" publication include Sidereus Nuncius? I have a reference that says it was banned from 1616 until 1822. I have no idea what was special about 1822, and the book’s own article doesn’t shed any light. -- JackofOz 02:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

1822 probably refers to an edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The 1616 date is certainly nonsense, and I strongly suspect the 1822 date is too. None of Galileo's works was banned, censured or censored^{[see correction below]} in any way until after his trial in 1633. At that time the Dialogue was listed in the Index as being absolutely prohibited (unlike Copernicus's De Revolutionibus of which appropriately censored versions were not prohibited). The Inquisition also issued an order prohibiting everything Galileo had ever written, or would write in the future, from being printed or reprinted. As I understand it, this would not have prohibited Catholics from owning or reading previously printed copies of those works, as would have been the case if they had been placed on the Index.

Judging from Coyne's description in McMullin (2005, p.347), the edition of Galileo's works approved by Benedict XIV did indeed include Sidereus Nuncius. He writes:

The imprimatur of Benedict XIV was granted under the condition that the stipulations of the Paduan Inquisitor, who had requested the imprimatur, be observed. The result was that the publication in 1744 of the "complete works" had to exclude the Letter to Christina and the Letter to Castelli. Furthermore, the Dialogue had to be printed in volume 4, accompanied by the 1633 sentence and the text of Galileo's abjuration, and it had to contain a preface emphasizing its "hypothetical" character.

What happened in 1822 was that Pope Pius VII granted an imprimatur (i.e. permission to print) to a work by a Catholic Canon, Giuseppe Settele, which treated heliocentrism as a physical fact rather than a mathematical fiction, was published, after having been granted an imprimatur (i.e. permission to be printed) by Pope Pius VII two years earlier. This effectively ended the Catholic Church's opposition to heliocentrism—although the Dialogue and De Revolutionibus nevertheless remained on the Index until it was next revised in 1835.

The assertion that Galileo was "formally rehabilitated in 1741" is at least a non-NPOV exaggeration, in my opinion, and should be revised. George Coyne, for instance, in the article of his mentioned above, criticizes claims of such an early "rehabilitation" of Galileo by the Church as inaccurate.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 19:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Correction

Above, I wrote:

None of Galileo's works was banned, censured or censored in any way until after his trial in 1633.

In saying that none of Galileo's works was censored in any way, I was thinking only of post-publication censorship. However, before any works could be published in Catholic countries in Galileo's time they had to be submitted to a censor for approval. Galileo was required to make changes to both his Letters on Sunspots and his Dialogue before the censors would give him permission to publish them. So at least some of his works were in fact "censored" before his trial. —David Wilson (talk · cont) 15:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Galilei singing songs for timing?

"For measurements of particularly short intervals of time, Galileo sang songs with whose timing he was familiar." I've heard of this theory, but I understood that it was only a theory, with little other evidence than that we don't know how he did those measurments so accurately. There should at least be a citation, or I will add to the article that this is a theory. Ornilnas 20:21, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the reference, but I recall reading this in either Physics Today or The Physics Teacher as something that he mentioned in private correspondence. I agree it should have a citation. And the point is not so much that the timing is familiar, as that anyone with musical training can sing a song so that it has a consistent timing, thus being able to arrive at distance being proportional to the square of time. I have tried this with undergraduate physics classes, and the results are generally quite accurate.--SarahLawrence Scott 20:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Stillman Drake's account on pages 88 and 89 of Galileo at Work strongly suggests that Galileo's purported use of musical rhythm to equalise short intervals of time, though reasonably plausible, is nevertheless no more than conjecture. He writes: "Galileo's procedure, as I reconstruct it, was this" (emphasis mine), and then proceeds to explain how he believes Galileo might have conducted his experiments. Immediately before this reconstruction he argues that by using this method Galileo could easily have specified time intervals which differed by no more than 1/64th of a second. In an end note he refers to experiments performed independently by himself and another colleague which apparently support his argument.

A telling observation, though, is that Drake cites no primary source in which Galileo is known to have mentioned this procedure—which he surely would have done if he had known of any. I would therefore be very wary of any claim that Galileo himself had described the procedure, unless the claimant were to provide a specific verifiable reference to some primary source where he did so.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Citation for "bell and ball" label

The article includes the following:

However, Galileo did perform experiments involving rolling balls down inclined planes, one of which is in Florence, called the bell and ball experiment

There should be a citation for this terminology. I'm not sure what specifically it's referring to, and have been unable to find references to a "bell and ball" experiment on the web other than those that seem to be derived from this Wikipedia entry. --SarahLawrence Scott 20:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I suspect "bell and ball experiment" refers to an exhibit in the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence. According to the description of the exhibit, it was constructed in the early nineteenth century and "[n]o documents survive proving that Galileo performed this specific experiment." It's possible that the editor responsible for the text in the article did not mean to imply that Galileo had carried out that specific experiment himself, although that certainly seems to me to be the most natural way to read it. But since the reference to the experiment seems to me to serve no useful purpose anyway, I shall delete it.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Odd

The words "His relevance" have appeared in the main article. It would be very odd if a Wikipedia article were written about an irrelevant person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed it would. However, I'm afraid I don't see the point of this observation. For a section devoted to explaining Galileo's significance in the history of science the heading "His relevance" seems entirely reasonable to me, although I think "His significance" would be more apt. I would query have no problems with the creation of this section, however, on the grounds that but the material it contained was written specifically for the lead (from which it was removed), and that still seems to me to be the proper place for it. —David Wilson (talk · cont) 15:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The editor involved seems to be interested in the Galileo article for unscientific reasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:33, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith on the part of other editors rather than speculating about whether they might be harbouring questionable motives. I intend to invite the editor responsible for this change to come here and discuss it. Before I do, however, I suggest that the discussion will be much more likely to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion if you were to delete the above comment. If you do so, I will in turn delete this one of mine (or you can do it yourself if you wish, provided you delete your own at the same time).

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 15:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I have commented out this heading for the time being to discourage edits which might make the text unsuitable for putting back into the lead. —David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is he called by his first name?

How did Galilei come to be known by his first name? We don't refer to Newton as 'Isaac' or Huygens as 'Christiaan'. Just wondering. --Chetvorno^TALK 09:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Important Italians were referred to by their first name only.

E pur si muove

I nearly went crazy trying to remember what it was that Galileo supposedly said after being forced to renounce the Copernican system. I think it's interesting and makes him seem like less of a cop-out for rolling over as the Church demanded. It gives him a nice "begrudged old man" feel, I suppose, which made him interesting to me.

Since it's not exactly proven to be true, I figured I shouldn't just throw it on there, but I think it should be place at the end of the discussion of his trial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Circuitries (talk • contribs) 18:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

See E pur si muove!, I'm not sure that we should have legends in the article, whether or not it gives us a nice feeling. I suppose there maybe a case for mentioning it, if only to discount it, as it's such a well-known supposed quote. Mikenorton (talk) 18:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)