Talk:Galileo Galilei/Archive 15

Conflict thesis 2.0
I'd like to express my support for Jrheller1's removal of the recently added conflict thesis section of the article. Wallingfordtoday I recognize your sincere efforts to create and contribute to that section, but I am seriously concerned about the promotion of highly speculative if not outright false views in the section, noted by Thucydides411 in the extensive quoting of Finocchiaro and Drake, two of our best experts on Galileo. In particular, some of your recent statements — "the Inquisition did have science on its side..." and "In Galileo's day, science had him screwed..." are both scientifically and historically false. Perhaps we can spend more time at the talk page here before trying to re-introduce this material into the article. -Darouet (talk) 00:44, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * OK. Finnochiaro is a scholar from a minority perspective. Stillman Drake is a scholar from a bygone generation and even wrote he does not understand Tycho's system. I don't think you can name anything in the section that's WP:FRINGE and almost all of Thucydides problems have to do with his personal opinion on why the star-size argument is wrong (Finnochiaro says nothing on the star-size argument in his book). The most important historian cited in the section, Lindberg, says that "the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion." I point you to Christopher Graney's Setting Aside All Authority (Notre Dame 2015) which demonstrates this at length.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 01:37, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I've also been recently reading some of the scholarship on the issue and would like to add a telling quote from this paper by Thomas Lessl. He writes;


 * "It is well known that the Copernican hypothesis was not on firm footing until long after 1618. In fact no direct empirical evidence of the earth's motion was available until 1729, when the English astronomer James Bradley discovered the aberration of starlight. The Galileo legends typically take Galileo's telescopic discoveries as definitive proof of the heliocentric position, even though what these observations disclosed could still be reconciled to the earth-centered cosmology of Tycho Brahe. The strongest evidence that did exist for the Copernican model during Galileo's lifetime-that being Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbit of the planets-was apparently unknown to Galileo and was far too technical to be understood even by learned Church officials." (pg. 156)


 * So I think this underscores the fact that most contemporary Galilean historians (Lessl says that this is "well known") agree that Copernican theory was on shoddy scientific grounds in Galileo's day. I would suggest we return the reliably sourced section I wrote as it really is only Finnochiaro who doesn't agree.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Agree with Darouet. That section was not needed, and it was partly repetitive, partly a WP:POVFORK trying to justify the Catholic Church's unacceptable behaviour, and more an independent essay than a part of the whole. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:01, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I disagree with this assessment. The Conflict thesis is very notable and the misunderstandings of the Galileo affair is the most notable of all the examples of the conflict thesis. Where did the section "justify" the Church's behavior? To suggest that refuting the Conflict thesis is to suggest that what's being described is therefore good is to misunderstand the nature of the article. I admit there were repetitive elements, but this can be solved by removing these elements and leaving the rest (most of it was original anyways).Wallingfordtoday (talk) 04:07, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The part about flaws in Galileo's theory, and how he had little evidence to support it, is interesting. However, I really don't see what that has to do with Conflict Thesis, or why it would be in that section. That whole section is laying out an argument: Galileo's imprisonment was not a battle between religion and science because Galileo didn't have science on his side. That argument doesn't belong in the article. It's a counterargument to an argument that isn't stated—it's completely pointless to include it (plus it's illogical). Maybe this stuff about Galileo's lack of evidence and his failure to convince the scientific community could be included elsewhere, in the sections dedicated to his career as a scientist or to his scientific contributions. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 04:20, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * "Maybe this stuff about Galileo's lack of evidence and his failure to convince the scientific community could be included elsewhere" - It is already included elsewhere - in this article.
 * "That whole section is laying out an argument" - Yes, exactly. That section is advocacy for an opinion. It is reasoning that if the Catholic Church, instead of battling against all scientists, just picks those it disagrees with and locks them up, it is not having a conflict with science. But it is! Science wants to be left alone by power players with their own agenda like Stalin (see Lysenkoism), the Popes, or American politicians (see Climate change denial, creationism, or Vaccine hesitancy). --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:45, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The point is that Galileo didn't have science on his side. The conflict was between religion and "heresy", so to speak. Though it is true most of the information appears to be elsewhere in the article, I don't see a problem with having a "quick summary" so to speak of the relevant facts that refute the conflict thesis, a nice summary of the scientific holes in Galileo's views, the real reason he was arrested, etc.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 04:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * In fact, perhaps this information deserves its own WP page?Wallingfordtoday (talk) 05:24, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I've gone around and around with on the issue of evidence for heliocentrism in the 1630s. You can look at the above threads, but the long and the short of it is that I think the evidence for heliocentrism was significantly stronger than the evidence for geocentrism by the 1630s, though not decisive enough to convince everyone (and the bar to convince older scientists to set aside an old paradigm can be extremely high). It's telling that almost every notable astronomer or physicist born around that time came to embrace heliocentrism. If you want a good overview of the evidence raised in Galileo's 1633 trial, look at Maurice Finocchiaro's Defending Copernicus and Galileo, which discusses the various pieces of evidence, but more importantly, discusses the context of the Galileo Affair. Finocchiaro rejects both the "anti-Catholic myth" and the "anti-Galilean myth" (the latter closely resembling what Wallingfordtoday wrote into the article). Wallingfordtoday has above complained that Finocchiaro does not address the "star-size problem" in his book, but I'm not even sure that this problem was raised in Galileo's 1633 trial, which is the subject of the book. It's also a problem for which Galileo had a rather straightforward response, which turned out to be mostly true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Interestingly, the inverse-square law was adduced by Kepler in 1604 but since there wasn't a consistent way to measure light intensity, there was no way to quantify the radiant flux from the Sun compared to that of a distant star. It wasn't until the nineteenth century(!) that astrophysicists worked out the relevant details. Of course, the aberration of light discovered in the late seventeenth century more-or-less demands that heliocentrism is correct which means that no one really cared about this at that point. jps (talk) 20:34, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * One solution is to simply include conflict thesis as a 'See also' link. It's mostly theory that was worked out after Galileo's time, so there's little justification to include this later debate on his article. UpdateNerd (talk) 09:50, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The "See also" section already has links to the more relevant articles "Catholic church and science" and "Galileo affair". It would make more sense to add links to some of Galileo's many technological and scientific discoveries since there is only one such link there now (to "Seconds pendulum"). Jrheller1 (talk) 17:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I think the solution is to simply create a "Galileo and the Conflict Thesis" WP page. I don't understand Thucydides persistence that most scientists accepted Galileo's claims - they didn't, as Lindberg notes. I should note that, contra Thucydides, Finnochiaro leaves out discussion of all the significant issues when it came to Galileo's science despite claiming that he's going to actually show Galileo was backed up by the sciencce (never discusses the star-size problem, devotes one page to the tidal wave problem and then doesn't address the problem with it, etc). Thucydides just raises the same complaints I've dealt with earlier as can be seen above. I would point out that one should read the minority scholarly view from Finnochiaro alongside the majority view as articulated by Lindberg, Hannam, and especially Graney's Setting Aside All Authority.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 22:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's a huge and incorrect stretch to say anything about what "most scientists" did with respect to Galileo's claims as there is no way to survey "most scientists" and there is no timeframe mentioned (most scientists came to understand that Kepler was correct very soon after he published -- Galileo resisted ellipses due to a theological preference for circles). Since there was no consensus on whether stars were resolved or not in Galileo's time, it is irresponsible to pretend that this is a major sticking point. If you've ever tried to measure the size of a star with the naked eye (as Tycho claimed to do), you know why this is really not a discussion anyone took seriously. jps (talk) 22:50, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * If you want to create a new Wikipedia article, here is an idea for a topic: "Measuring star diameter and mass". In the "Star" article, there are just two small sections on diameter and mass with very little discussion of how these properties are actually measured.  Obviously, you could also include a section on the history of star diameter and mass measurement.  Jrheller1 (talk) 01:05, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * What most scientists did with respect to Galileo's work is easily measured. Surveys of opinion in post-Renaissance Europe are easily doable because of the abundance of sources that exist after the invention of the printing press. In my discussion with Thucydides, I pointed to two surveys on acceptance of Copernican heliocentrism between the time of Copernicus to 1600. I don't think you understand the data very well because it's also not true that most scientists accept what Kepler said soon after he published - Kepler's "demonstration" remained obscure for decades after his death, even Galileo was apparently unaware of it (in fact I provide a reference saying just this on the very thread we're discussing). The large majority of scholars agree on the star-size problem and I've never seen any scholar attempt to address the arguments, even Finnochiaro. There's also no way I'm going to create a WP page on measuring star diameter and mass - I just don't know enough in this area of scholarship. It will be sufficient to quote the scholarly sources on the measured star sizes at the time.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:04, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

No one seriously argues that people in Galileo's time measured the sizes of stars. That's just absurd. Kepler's demonstration was accepted by people who mentioned it. Galileo was aware of it. He talks about it in his correspondence with Kepler. jps (talk) 03:48, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * It also bears repeating that what people thought before 1600 isn't very relevant here. Galileo's made his first telescopic observations in 1609, he published the Starry Messenger in 1610, the Inquisition declared heliocentrism to be heretical in 1616, and Galileo was put on trial in 1633. In other words, the events we're discussing are after 1600. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:57, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Wallingfordtoday, I'm curious why you are so intent on writing an article critical of Galileo and favorable towards his persecutors. Clearly Galileo was much closer to the truth than his persecutors. Equally clearly his methods of promoting his ideas (publishing and disseminating them) were much better than the methods of his persecutors (threatening people who questioned their ideas with torture and execution). I don't see why you couldn't write a brief history of star diameter and mass measurement methods from Brahe and Galileo up to the present. Even though you don't know much about this, you could certainly learn (this is the purpose of Wikipedia after all: learning and helping others learn useful and interesting facts more easily). Then maybe someone else could write the rest of the article. This would certainly be more useful to readers than an article critical of Galileo and favorable towards his persecutors. Jrheller1 (talk) 05:10, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * If anything, your response reaffirms the reason for writing the article -- there's too much misinformation. Not Galileo, nor anyone else, was threatened with "execution". Galileo was never in any chance of being tortured (for one, the Inquisition doesn't allow for torture for anyone whose old, ill, or a cleric, and Galileo was all three of these in 1633). You also get wrong that it was Galileo who just went for disseminating his ideas -- but so did the geocentrists like Ingoli and Riccioli. It was Galileo who, in fact, took the cheaper road, publishing his work in common Italian rather than the scholarly language of Latin. This suggests his goal was to spread his ideas, not convince his scholarly opponents. Etc, etc. And to end, the article is not one that is "critical of Galleo and favorable towards his persecutors". That is a flagrant misreading of the situation. The article targets the pervasive Conflict thesis.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 01:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Giordano Bruno was executed, in quite a public and horrific manner. Galileo was likely threatened with torture - at least, that's what most scholars seem to think. But my God, how dare Galileo publish a book in a language the general public could actually read!
 * It would be fine to write something about the conflict thesis, in my opinion, but you didn't do that. You wrote a section that appears to try to justify and downplay Galileo's persecution in various ways, and to suggest that he was a poor scientist. The Conflict Thesis is a historiographical subject, which you barely mentioned in the text you added to the article. I gave you some quotes from Finocchiaro on the relation between the Galileo Affair and the Conflict Thesis. Those might be a good starting point. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Wallingfordtoday, what do you think of Robert Sungenis? He wrote a book called "Galileo was wrong, the Church was right".  This is exactly the idea you are trying to promote on Wikipedia.  Are you a geocentrist like Sungenis? Jrheller1 (talk) 04:45, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The fact that you refer to the inquisition in present tense is amusingly telling. 38.68.203.42 (talk) 08:12, 9 March 2019 (UTC)


 * (Responding to a post further up that was followed by an outdent. I have no idea where to place a second response to that) "Surveys of opinion in post-Renaissance Europe are easily doable" Yeah right. Scientists of that time would freely write what they think because nobody would put them under house arrest, torture them or burn them alive for it. The inquisition? That was just rational discussion.
 * Surveys of opinion are difficult enough with living people. Surveying dead people who lived in a period of oppression? No. Even if it were possible, you would need reliable sources explicitly saying what you claim. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:06, 9 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I have been absent in recent days for medical reasons, though I'm fine now. I find it highly amusing that the facts pertaining to the Conflict thesis would lead you to suggest that I'm a geocentrist. I think that suggestion settles itself.  You're fine to have your opinion that my section wasn't about the conflict thesis, even if it was precisely so. You continuously allude to these malicious parts of what I wrote secretly justifying Galileo's trial, though it seems to be in your head. For example, not a single place did anything I wrote ever try, despite you seeing upsidedown bananas otherwise, to downplay Galileo's persecution. The only thing I wrote in relevance to this was that Galileo's sentence was immediately commuted from imprisonment to house arrest. And that's an undisputed fact! No part of history is being downplayed! You also totally miss the point I made about language. This isn't even my point - it's something David Lindberg himself explains! Galileo wasn't seeking to convince fellow scholars, he was seeking to spread his ideas. This is often missed when proponents of the Conflict thesis try to paint the Galileo affair as a business where the ultra-rational and neutral Galileo desperately tries to just point his interlocutors to the evidence, to just look into the telescope, while they stubbornly refuse and look at Galileo with an axe in one hand and a copy of the Psalms in another.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 20:32, 11 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Why is it surprising that people would think you might be a geocentrist? What you are trying to promote sounds very similar to "Galileo was wrong, the Church was right".  Geocentrism is actually fairly common today: polls show that approximately 20 percent of Americans and Britons are geocentrists. Jrheller1 (talk) 00:09, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
 * You're embarrassing yourself.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 02:30, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Part of the issue here is that there is an undercurrent of apologia for the Inquisition that holds sway in certain conservative Catholic cirlces. It's best not to argue over whether that makes a person a geocentrist or not. However, Galileo is not remembered as a churchman. He is remembered as a scientist, and many of the people who are attempting to evaluate his science while finding it lacking do not do a particularly good job -- some, including pre-pope Ratzinger, not even really understanding the arguments they are making. Those who complain that the Tychonic system was preferred seem to not understand that the Tychonic system made less accurate predictions than the Copernican (which itself was not as good as Ptolemy -- though at least Copernicus admitted to this). Worse, some seem only interested in emphasizing arguments that later turned out to be spurious or moot (like the tides). Why Galileo is remembered is (1) he set the stage for an acceptance of Keplerian mechanics by championing the Copernican precursor, (2) for his empirical work and publications about what was possible to discover using a telescope, and (3) by laying the groundwork for Newtonian physics by establishing some mechanistic equivalencies between celestial motions and terrestrial physics. The trial and Inquisition heat is just an embarrassment for an overblown power-structure that claimed an monopoly on truth that all but collapsed as the Italian Renaissance decayed. The trials were set-up by certain church dignitaries who weren't as accomplished as Galileo and the proof is in the pudding. So, I argue that this view should be the emphasis of the article. Sure, you can find Popper and Duhem apologias for Bellarmine's approach, but that kind of contortion act for the sake of salty philosophy is not the point of this article (and, anyway, most reviewers of this thesis find it wanting). jps (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Heliocentrism, as articulated by Copernicus and Galileo, did not make more accurate predictions than the Tychonic systems. In fact, Tycho's system was mathematically identical to Copernicus's model. What reliable source do you have to back you up? As for Galileo's inquisitors being "less accomplished", this is as relevant to whether or not Galileo had violated his 1616 legal promise as an Australian hamster running circles on a sidewalk.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 16:10, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, Copernicus's system arguably did make more accurate predictions as the Tychonic system relied on a hybridization of Ptolemy and Copernicus -- bringing in the worst of both worlds, in a sense. Of course, this is largely a subjective game when it comes to comparing who is the "wronger" and, really, the only person in the world at the time of the trial who could have actually showed that they were all full of hot air was Kepler because he had his hands on the Tycho dataset -- which is what really mattered. jps (talk) 20:37, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Kepler and theories of tides
I simplified some prose which then got reverted under claims under 'white-washing', which I find to be off base. According to what source does Kepler's acceptance of the Moon's relation to tides, known by ancient Greece, have anything to do with Galileo? I also made notes out of the anachronistic interpretation by Einstein and parenthetical note about Galileo's failure to accept Kepler's elliptical orbits because they stink of POV and an attempt to frame a certain narrative. I call that white-washing, not my attempt to keep things contemporaneous and on topic. UpdateNerd (talk) 17:45, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Removed student edit
Removed this edit by User:Mtaradash because its a stand alone synopsis of the topic inserted in the middle of the section covering the topic and it is mostly redundant: Aristotelian point of view, Kepler's supernova, Jupiter's moons (incorrectly described), science contradicting scripture, Tommaso Caccini, interactions with Pope Urban VIII are all covered elsewhere in the article. I note this is a student editor so I have left note of the problems on that users talk page. Noaccountaccount (talk) 15:40, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Mtaradash
User:Mtaradash is pathetically incompetent and is wasting my time with his mendacity. He says that Galileo saw "the phases of the moons around Jupiter". He seems to have confused the four brightest moons of Jupiter and Venus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1ala1a (talk • contribs) 10:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

This personal attack on User:Mtaradash is unacceptable on Wikipedia. I have issued a Level 2 warning to User:1alala1 on his Talk page. Dolphin ( t ) 12:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The unpleasant editor is just another sock of Azul411 and blocked accordingly. In the not unlikely event that you encounter similarly disruptive activity on Galileo-related articles, I strongly recommend that you report them. Favonian (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Controversy over heliocentrism
This section is vastly too long, since there's a see-main, Galileo affair. It should be just a couple of summary paragraphs William M. Connolley (talk) 07:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Galileo died at 77
MODERATOR: Galileo died at 77 should be added right after his death date. Everyone's age should be included right after their death date. 2601:589:4800:9090:31DA:A31D:3324:8D2E (talk) 14:41, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done. That information is already included, both in the infobox and the "Death" section of the article proper. Favonian (talk) 15:52, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Galileo's work on the magnet
A subject that has been given little attention is Galileo's work on the magnet. See https://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/itineraries/multimedia/GalileoAndMagnetism.html.
 * The Galileo Project says that Galileo probably read Gilbert's book on the magnet but gives no quotations. See http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/gilbert.html . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.70.95.237 (talk) 13:43, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There might be a reference to Galileo and his buying a magnet in "The Private Life of Galileo", by Mary Allan-Olney, published in London in 1870. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.85.161.171 (talk) 12:15, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Good article reassessment needed
This article has multiple uncited sentences, paragraphs, and even an entire section with no sources. The "Knowledge of Galileo in China" seems rather futile as it could be a sentence in another section instead of being an entire section itself. The "Mathematics" section is too short. The article has a maintenance tag at the top and has a single source on the "Published written works" section. These issues have to be addressed by someone knowledgeable about Galileo. Wretchskull (talk) 11:34, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Copernican heliocentrism
In the lead of this article; third paragraph, it says "Galileo's championing of heliocentrism (Earth revolving around the sun) and Copernicanism (Earth rotating around the sun) met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers."

Suggesting the Earth rotates around the sun appears to be an incorrect use of the verb "rotate". The article Copernican heliocentrism correctly uses the verb "rotate" to mean the daily (24-hour) rotation of the Earth around its own axis; NOT its 365-daily movement around the sun. It appears to me that both heliocentrism and Copernicanism are based on the Earth revolving around the sun once every 365 days - it isn't possible to distinguish between heliocentrism and Copernicanism on the ground that one involves revolution around the sun, and the other rotation around the sun. Dolphin ( t ) 12:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * has reworded the lead to eliminate the problem. See the diff. Thanks Schlafly! Dolphin ( t ) 04:47, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Article issues

 * From at least the "Phases of Venus" subsection through the "Theory of tides", "Controversy over comets and The Assayer", to the "Controversy over heliocentrism", there are more than a few inline "citation needed" tags. Many, most, or maybe all of these were added in 2020. It really doesn't matter because they question the verifiability of the content. The criteria of even a B-class article states: The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. It seems pretty clear that the tags lend more than "likely to be challenged". Being under the supposed watchful eye of a dozen or more WikiProjects it would seem someone might have caught this. If one (or more) of the 1,499 watchers would be so kind as to take a look at this I would appreciate it as a deterrent to possible delisting. -- Otr500 (talk) 15:16, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

"Middle Finger" on Display
Is there anything deliberately symbolic about the fact that his middle finger from his right hand is on display. I know what it means today. Did it mean the same thing several centuries ago? Did they take the middle finger for this reason? Is Galileo "giving the finger" to the world, for all eternity? If so, I think the Article should mention it.68.206.248.178 (talk) 22:08, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
 * First, please be aware that this talk page is for threads about editing the article. Next, I don't see a pic where the middle finger is displayed in a prominent fashion. Last, please see The finger. In future please try one of the ref desks for questions like this. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)!
 * It's on display in the Museo Galileo in Florence.
 * 2001:8003:1DF2:D00:98BA:C6F4:AAC8:1308 (talk) 15:20, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Rjensen
Rjensen deletes books from the Further Reading without saying so in his edit summaries. His phrases mendaciously say nothing about his deletions. See his efforts "ce... Drake... Drake... Citation". It seems that he does not like the books he is deleting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lili5thk (talk • contribs) 14:49, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * If you doubt the deletions, feel free to restore those titles, per WP:BRD. Then, you may get a more satisfying explanation, or Rjensen will relent, or we can discuss it here. Dhtwiki (talk) 00:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * there are thousands of books and articles on Galileo--the issues is useful selection. I mostly dropped items in foreign languages that are very hard to get in English-speaking countries and also very old books that no longer are much help to readers of English Wikipedia. Rjensen (talk) 00:34, 30 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The files on the Galileo affair have not changed much since the 17th century. Old books are just as good as recent ones. French, Spanish and Italian are widely spoken. Most of the documents in the Vatican files are in Italian and Latin, as are Galileo's books. The whole article will have to be deleted if only one language is allowed. A new theory has come in since the 17th century, relativity. This is not mentioned by Rjensen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lili5thk (talk • contribs) 09:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The English language version should be designed to help English language readers. Books they can't read or get ahold of take up space better given to more useful items. As for studies centuries old, they are almost impossible to find or evaluate unless a person is a specialist with rare skills. Rjensen (talk) 15:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

has been blocked as a sock of long-time Galileo stalker User:Azul411. Favonian (talk) 16:40, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Unnecessarily gendered language
The first paragraph calls Galileo "…the 'father of observational astronomy', the 'father of modern physics', the 'father of the scientific method', and the 'father of modern science'." Can we avoid the unnecessarily gendered use of the word "father" for all of these? Since this paragraph is the one re-broadcast in a simple Google search, these terms get especially wide distribution. Yes, people have called him these things. But, could we describe his seminal work in these fields without calling him the "father" of them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ba2kell (talk • contribs) 19:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , he's a man and he is the father and that is an intimate, familial relationship enjoyed by people in those fields. Elizium23 (talk) 19:21, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * If we were describing him as the father, that would be a WP:Peacock term. But given these are quotes it is acceptable. Polyamorph (talk) 09:48, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I think when sources say that he is the "father" of something, then you do not need to delete it's statement, but only add "in the opinion of such-such people or publications / they named him"HernánCortés1518 (talk) 17:05, 25 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Observational astronomy was carried out for thousands of years with the unaided eye, before Galileo. Thomas Harriot made telescopic observations about 4 months before Galileo, of the Moon, with a telescope. Readers know that metaphors are meaningless in a quotation or in Wikipedia's own voice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by H1h1dgft (talk • contribs) 08:41, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

has been blocked as a sock of long-time Galileo stalker User:Azul411. Favonian (talk) 16:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation respelling key adds 'Yo' at the end?
The article proposes "GAL-il-AY-oh GAL-il-AY-ee, -⁠EE-oh -⁠" as the pronunciation, but why is there a "-⁠EE-oh -⁠" ('Yo') at the end? It does add a gangsta vibe though. AlfredD218 (talk) 03:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * AlfredD218 seems to overlooked the fact that the last four letters are giving another, English spelling pronunciation of "Galileo". — Preceding unsigned comment added by H1h1dgft (talk • contribs) 08:51, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * It is possible that AlfredD218 is trying to be funny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by H1h1dgft (talk • contribs) 09:04, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

has been blocked as a sock of long-time Galileo stalker User:Azul411. Favonian (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Indeed I wasn't aware of the alternate pronunciation. The syntax is confusing though because the "-⁠EE-oh-" is placed at then end thus one would think it applies to the ending of the preceding word (Galilei). The examples provided in the Manual of Style seems to always give the whole word's alternate pronunciation, not just the part that changes. AlfredD218 (talk) 10:03, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

minor mistake
In the section Legacy => Astronomy, the current phrasing "In Galileo's 1604 observation of Kepler's Supernova and his conclusion that it was a group of distant stars" is wrong; should be: "In Galileo's 1604 observation of Kepler's Supernova and his conclusion that the Milky Way was a group of distant stars." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.0.17 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 23 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Please sign all your talk page messages with four tildes ( ~ ) — See Help:Using talk pages. Thanks.
 * ✅: . - DVdm (talk) 18:39, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Galileo disproved the Aristotelian notion of the immutability of the heavens
This seems dubious. The 1572 supernova had already done that William M. Connolley (talk) 09:27, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Taking another tangent, upon reading Kollerstrom's article (the only source cited for Galileo's 1604 observation), I noticed that it does not explicitly claim that Galileo stated that the new stars "disproved the Aristotelian belief in the immutability of the heavens." Are there any other sources? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Aristotle and falling bodies
The article contains an incorrect claim "This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight" which is not anywhere in Aristotle and comes from a misreading by Philoponus.

Aristotle's words on the subject concern objects falling through a medium which is resisting the moment and the words are

"But since there are two factors, the force responsible for the downward motion of the heavy body and the disruption-resisting force of the continuous surface, there must be some ratio between the two. For in proportion as the force applied by the heavy thing towards disruption and division exceeds that which resides in the continuum, the quicker will it force its way down; only if the force of the heavy thing is the weaker, will it ride upon the surface. "

(On the Heavens, Book IV part 8)

This certainly does not say or imply that they fall faster in direct proportion to their weight, that is just a careless reading of the text by Philoponus who simply ignores the "two factors". It is certainly true that the speed of an object falling through a medium is proportional to the amount the downward force exceeds the resistance of the medium it is falling or sinking through.

See also "Aristotle's Physics: A Physicists Look" where he makes the same point about this and says "I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct and nonintuitive approximation of Newtonian physics in the suitable domain (motion in fluids) in the same technical sense in which Newton's theory is an approximation of Einstein's theory." Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 23 - 40

I think this line should be amended to: "This was contrary to what Aristotle was incorrectly believed to have taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight." and the primary source of Aristotle's own work given. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.71.26 (talk • contribs) 03:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Was Galileo allowed to publish after his trial?
The section on Galileo's Personal Library says "Under the restrictions of house arrest, he was forbidden to write or publish his ideas". But he did with his 1638 book Dialogues on the Two New Sciences which was available even in Italy. JFB80 (talk) 07:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * See Two New Sciences. This answers you, in some degree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.75.119.235 (talk) 15:34, 18 January 2022 (UTC)