Lecture 3f. Galileo's Contributions
The influence of Galileo's experiments and observations was tremendous, in many respects.
on Philosophy: Earth is just another planet
- terrain features on the Moon similar to those on Earth
- he saw 4 moons in orbit of Jupiter, meaning not everything orbits the Earth
on Cosmology: saw phases of Venus, confirming one Copernican prediction
on Physics: objects in motion stay in same state of motion unless subjected
to a force
- contradicts Aristotle!
- essentially Newton's First Law of motion
Galileo was censured for teaching Copernicanism by the Church,
which held the Ptolemaic view
- only in 1992 did the Church admit it was wrong in censoring Galileo
- Paul Feyerabend, in his book Against Method, argued that Galileo deserved to be
censored!
- nobody saw what he did when looking through the telescope!
- Galileo's sketches of
the Moon look funny!