Talk:Galileo Galilei/Archive 3

Miscellaneous new topics
"Galileo was tutored from a very young page." Is that a typo, or did I miss something? 84.73.212.248 23:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism: where did these quotes come from??? I am trying to write a paper, and it seems like these quotes probably shouldn't go in: "born in HEY! and got his balls cut off in 1563." "During this time he explored sexual intercourse and made many landmark homosexual activities...such as...the invention of anal stimulation" "In 1611, he screwed michal jackson in Rome, where he joined the homos united and..." I dont have the factual info to change this myself, could this maybe be changed soon?

(Have to have some kind of heading to get the text in a readonable place.)

Removed the lead paragraph from Astronomy, as follows:


 * In 1600, astronomers were engaged in a great debate between the Copernican system (the planets revolved around the Sun) and the geocentric system (the planets and Sun revolved around Earth). In 1604, Galileo announced his support for the Copernican school of thought, but he lacked the means to reinforce the opinion.

This, along with another passage, expresses the point of view that Galileo's work in astronomy was, at least in large part, inspired by a project to prove Copernican ideas. There is no evidence of this in his writings or other documents. The other POV is that before 1610 he didn't devote a great deal of attention to the controversy (which was, in fact, not at all hot in 1600 - 1609), but took a strong interest when the new evidence started showing up. Perhaps a section on his philosophical opinions and the history of his thoughts would be a good idea. But to "Teach the Controversy" in a lead paragraph to a section on what he actually did wouldn't work. --Dandrake 01:21, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

It's like eating popcorn, isn't it? Also took the same POV idea out of the article lead:
 * He believed in Copernicus' theories leading him to search for evidence that the Sun was in the center of the solar system and not the Earth.

--Dandrake 01:27, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Darn! I ended up doing a sizable vandalism repair while not logged in. Damn I'm stupid!

Anyway, the various repairs during the orgy of vandalism around last Dec. 12 left a couple of gaps, like the Physics heading and the entire Mathematics section, and some of the structure of the scientific part of the article. At least, I haven't found anything in the Talk page or the submission notes of the time to indicate that there was any non-malicious intent behind the changes. --Dandrake 03:03, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Any grounds for the claim (see change by 169.233.76.32) that Galileo might have managed to defy the Inquisition at the scene of his condemnation without any consequences? If "some believe" he might not have got away with it, where is someone who thinks he might have? Dandrake 06:17, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Galilei is often referred to as 'Galileo'. But if you refer to Newton, you don't say 'Isaac' either, so I feel Galileo is incorrect, allthough I was informed (by an American acquaintance of mine) that it is the common name that's used in the United States to refer to Galilei. I don't feel free to change all occurences of this name but hope someone else will. --62.131.177.93 1:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Please do not change them. Not till you've corrected, in chronological order, the references to Alighieri, Buonarotti, da Vinci (easier there, since Americans are less likely than Italians to first-name him), and -- darn it, I've forgotten Raphael's last name. Then, with Galileo done, you can go on to Dutchmen, like van Rijn.

By the way, if you encounter a reference to Michalngelo Buonarotti, it's probably to Michelangelo's nephew. Neither the first name noe the last, nor both together, will uniquely identify which is which, but the convention does. Funny coincidence time: which Galilei is one referring to? By saying Galileo, you avoid ambiguity with his famous father.

Usage is not alway consistent. I like historical ones. Italians have first-named a lot of their famous people, and it seems to me respectful, rather than otherwise, to follow their choices. By the way, with reference to the United States, could you provide some data on usage elsewhere? The only pattern I've noticed in English-language usage is a seeming tendency for the surname to be preferred by people who disapprove of Galileo. Hmm, maybe that supports my point about being respectful. Dandrake 19:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Not to belabor the point or anything, but I got curious about this, because the great Galilei question pops up every so often. So I tried a quick and dirty sampling of UK usage: Google for anything containing either "Galileo" or "Galilei", and not containing "satellite", and coming from a .UK domain.

Not "satellite"? Well, I was trying not to bias it in favor of the Galileo navigation system, which gets a lot of pages. BTW I don't think that pan-European project was named by Americans. Of course this search omitted a lot of pages about Jupiter's moons, but I don't think that will bias the sample either way.

For each page found, Google showed the title and two context lines containing either of the matched terms. These fell into four classes: (1) only "Galileo Galilei" is named; (2) like (1), but at least one of the names is also used by itself; (3) only "Galileo" appears; (4) only "Galilei" appears. Quibble-proofing disclosure: References in which "Galilei" is preceded by "Vincenzo" are omitted.

In the first 100 finds, there were several of (1); also many of (2), always with Galileo as the name used by itself; many of (3); none of (4). I admit that I could have missed something, and invite anyone to check the result and post a correction. Meanwhile I don't find evidence that "Galileo" is an Americanism. --Dandrake 22:50, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Point is clear. Being respectful, I first mentioned the point here before I started editing all occurences that I thought were less inaccurate. The only persons being named by their first name that I could think of were the biblical ones but you tought me better. Thanks. I won't change the names then, and be happy with that. --62.131.177.93 0:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I want to ad information about Galileo, accurate information, but now the page is locked! oh well... but here's my opinion about him: Galileo Galilee will be remembered as the man who cared more about uncovering the truth than he cared about his life. He will also be remembered as the man who started modern science .Most of all, though, he will be remembered as a great man who accomplished more than anyone could have possibly asked him to.

Who was Galileo?
Was he a crusader for the truth against a Catholic Church that turned a blind eye to the truth? A rebel rousing annoyance who was just persecuted because he kept obnoxiously bringing up his ideas? Just some scientist who had the right scientific breakthroughs at the wrong time?

Galileo as astrologer
Galileo was definitely an astrologer because he produced astrological charts and made (wrong) predictions like the one for the Great Duke of Toscane. He predicted that the Duke very ill would live a few more years but he died exactly 22 days later! What is important is to decide if he was sincere or not. His opinion on astrology and astrologers can be evaluated through the second part of his letter to Monsignor Piero Dini (21 May 1611). In this letter he is mocking on contemporary astrologers and on the very principles of astrology. On the influence of the 4 main Jupiter satellites, he argues that if they don't have an astrological influence because their light is to weak and their movement vis-a-vis Jupiter is too small, how is it then that the (crucial) ascendant and Medium Coeli exert influence when they have no movement nor light!


 * This is yet another sad indicator why wikipedia is a doomed project. Galileo wrote treatises on astrology, he made astrological charts, he taught astrology to medical students, yet there is a "debate" about whether he was actually an astrologer and whether this should be mentioned in the opening paragraph. Good luck to all of you, and to anyone ever taking this project seriously. This is just another example of the intellectual bankruptcy of "NPOV policy" and how what really gets put on the page is just the collective wisdom or prejudice of the mob majority.


 * You won't get very far by making personal attacks and referring to people as "morons" in your edit summaries.
 * A moment of frustration. There are people who go beyond the position you advocate below...saying that Galileo had "no use" for astrology or that he had nothing to do with it. This is patently false, and anyone who thinks so is a moron, and I have no problem saying so.

I have just started editing and writing a couple of articles in Wikipedia, and I have slowly begun to see that this project is indeed "doomed." i.e. Most of the articles are written by people who clearly have a great interest in their subject, but no expertise. I have a PhD in History of Science, and reading the stuff on this talk page is so demoralizing. People here generally get so hung up on issues of semantics or nomenclature, when the substance isn't even there to begin with. What upsets me the most is that when I want to look up something with which I am unfamiliar--to learn something--I am haunted by the notion that the author(s) have so many mistakes in the article. This makes the articles on politics, current internationsl affairs better--because on the Talk Pages you can really get a feel for what the real disagreements are--and learn alot more than in the body of the article itself, oftentimes. And--last and least--the grammar in almost all the articles here is not even at grammar-school level; that really destroys any confidence one can have. And I hesitate to even make minor edits or rewrites on an article if I don't think I really know enough. I'm not going to give up, but this entire encyclopedia ought to have as its motto "caveat emptor." 66.108.4.183 18:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth


 * Most of the references to Galileo and astrology come from astrologers themselves, perhaps wishing to appropriate a famous name for themselves. But even if true these would not be significant enough to describe Galileo as an astrologer.
 * That's not the point. The point is -- a bricklayer is someone who lays bricks, a teacher is someone who has students and delivers lectures, a farmer is someone who sells crops, a painter is someone who splashes oil on a canvas, etc., etc. The point is that if Galileo's astrological activities are insufficient to even warrant describing him as an "astrologer", then hardly anyone from that time period qualifies! You may think he was a reluctant astrologer, or an astrologer who eventually developed ideas that led to the downfall of astrology as we know it, but it's just intellectually dishonest to not even acknowledge that it's accurate to say he was a working astrologer, or that astrology was one of his activities (and not just "to put food on the table"...that doesn't explain drawing horoscopes for family). He was very active in doing things that were known as defining what an astrologer was at that time -- so it's just dishonest not to acknowledge this. Look, I don't believe in astrology, and I believe Galileo had lots of expressed doubts about it, but this hardly justifies stripping any and all mention of astrology from this article. I don't think this is a case of astrologers "appropriating" a famous name for themselves, as much as scientists "disappropriating" a label that they would rather not see connected in any way to one of their founding icons.


 * Galileo did not make any notable contributions to astrology, that is, he was not notable as an astrologer. His claim to fame comes entirely from his scientific work. He didn't publish books or articles or writings of any kind on astrology, or make "discoveries" in the field, or found any schools of thought, or influence or teach any astrological disciples, or make his mark in any way in that field.


 * Yes, to a certain extent the modern clear dividing line between astronomy and astrology was much less clear in those days, and Kepler was certainly known to dabble in the "music of the spheres" and similar stuff. Galileo may have been expected by his patrons to provide horoscopes for them. So what?  The fact that astrology and astronomy were not always sharply distinguished in early times is already mentioned in detail at Astrology; it's hardly necessary to repeat this fact in every single article about every single astronomer of a certain era.  In the Kepler article it probably warrants a mention.  In Galileo, it probably doesn't. -- Curps 03:43, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The problem goes beyond mentioning the word "astrology" or acknowledging that astrology/astronomy were bound up together historically. The problem is that the article gives almost no mention of astrology at all! And when it does, it's always in the POV of the 20th-century scientist, not really a historian trying to puzzle together historically people's motivations and the turn of events of things. I understand that scientists want to present their diluted version of history, but science is not history, and to get an accurate historical picture of things, you can't look at everything through 20th-century glasses, which is what this article does.

If you search books on amazon.com you will find a book or two that say Gallileo's work helped discredit astrology. "Astrology: A History" by Peter Whitfield, for one. I'm not interested in astrology so I recuse myself beyond this note. Jok2000 13:23, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There's no mention at all in this article of Galileo's children. In fact, aside from one line about his father, Galileo's personal life is unmentioned in this article. ?????--Firsfron 01:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, for what it's worth (all from Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter):


 * Galileo had three illegitimate children, all by Marina Gamba (d. February 1619) (she did not live with Galileo):
 * Virginia, b 13 August 1600 d. 2 April 1634. She became a nun at San Matteo d'Arcetri, taking vows, and the name Suor Maria Celeste, on 28 October 1616.
 * Livia, b. 18 August 1601, d. 14 June 1659, who became a nun at San Matteo d'Arcetri, taking vows and the name of Suor Arcangel on 28 October 1617
 * Vincenzio, b. 21 August 1606, d. 16 May 1629, legitimized 25 June 1619, married 29 January 1629, Sestilia di Carlo Boccherini. He had three children, Galileo, Carlo, and Cosimo


 * Galileo's parents were Vincenzio (1520-1591) and Giulia di Cosimo Ammannati (1538-1620); his siblings included Benedetto, Virginia, Anna, Michelangelo, Livia, and, perhaps, Lena.



The date you list for Vincenzio's (Galileo's son) death cannot be right. He was married at age 23, and had 3 children, yet died just four months after his wedding? No way. Also, "Suor Archangel" isn't right.

The rest of this could go on the page, if a free source can be found.

--Firsfron 03:16, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NB: The headings here, added after the fact, are not very accurate, but they at least allow some way of jumping down through the text. Dandrake 02:34, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)

Old telescopes
I have some facts about Galileo and the telescope that people might be interested in. The first telescopes were very unclear and had very narrow fields of vision. Most people could not see anything of any significance when they first looked down the telescope - Galileo would even offer lessons to show people how to find stars with a telescope, and then interpret what they saw. Hence, it was very easy (even legitimate) for Galileo's opponents (I'm talking individuals here, not institutions) to dispute the truth of his claims - they just said that the telescope was unreliable, what people saw wasn't actually the heavens but something in the telescope itself, or even that the telescope was a magical object. As with most 'scientific' discoveries, acceptance was due to a consensus, rather than 'proof'. A good article may be van Helden, A. "Telescopes and authority from Galileo to Cassini", in Osiris 9 (Instruments), pp 9-29 for those who wish to know more. It may also give an interesting aspect to the Church/Galileo dispute raging on above - so far, all the arguments have been interesting but, on the whole, far more vitriolic (dare I say childish?) than I expect from academics! Any chance of keeping the whole thing more relevant and less personal? User:131.111.243.37


 * It's true that the early telescopes were very poor. One of the reasons that Galileo was the first to observe and publish anything significant was that his telescopes were better; Kepler at the Imperial court couldn't at first get an instrument good enough to check Galileo's claims.  People who had inferior instruments were reasonable enough in being skeptical for a while, but there may be limits to reasonable skepticism there.  Refusing to look (as actually happened) would be an example of exceeding the limits.


 * Is the belief that it might be a magical object to be considered legitimate? In the context of the magical thinking of the time, perhaps so; but if one is talking about contributions to science, I don't think so. And the suspicion that the effects were illusory invites the same sort of objection: if you want to know if the instrument shows reality, you can check it against earthly reality for starters.  Failure to do so is the sort of thing that Galileo is credited with struggling against.


 * The statement that what happened was consensus rather than 'proof' almost begins to verge on the sort of thing you'd find in a postmodernist journal along with Sokal's article on hegemonic physics.  Is the current acceptance of telescopic observations,  including Galileo's, based on consensus rather than proof?  It is a consensus: people who make the observations get the same results, and if any claim not to, they are properly dismissed as unreliable.  But having said that, what has one said that everyone didn't already know about science?  At what point would you say that the agreement on Galileo's results became proof rather than consensus?  Am I asking too many rhetorical questions?


 * Having got a little insulting there, I'll say that I've skimmed through the now-archived discussions, and I agree that much is unscholarly and unhelpful. If either side is worse than the other, I didn't read carefully enough to notice.  But Galileo remains a subject of major controversy and strong feelings.  How, really, does one achieve NPOV here?  (One can, though, get the available facts as right as possible, using verifiable modern scholarship (which is indeed a bit of a dig at White.))
 * Dandrake

For more on these topics look at:

Albert van Helden "The telescope in the seventeenth century", ISIS 65, 1974: 39-58; "The invention of the telescope", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 67,4, 1977: 1-27. Yaakov Zik "Galileo and the telescope", Nuncius 2,1999: 31-67; "Science and instruments: The telescope as a scientific instrument at the beginning of the seventeenth century", Perspectives on Science, 9,3, 2001: 259-284.

Albert Van Helden and Yaakov Zik, “Between discovery and disclosure: Galileo and the telescope”, in, a cura di Beretta M., Gallluzzi P., Triarico C., Studies on Scientific Instruments and Collections in Honour of Mara Miniati, Bibilioteca di Nuncius Vol. 49, Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2003: 173-190.

Better than Ptolemaic?
"When Galileo was defending the copernican model, it was not scientifically superior to the Ptolemaic system." That's true but Galileo was the first to observe the satellites of Jupiter (a mini-solar system). IMO this led him to the conviction that small things should turn around around big things even if the real scientific basis requires Newton theory of gravity. Ericd 20:37 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

I've changed the statement that Galileo based his argument about the Moon's imperfect sphericity on "the occultation of stars", because most of the sources I've just looked at (admitted just some random webpages) suggest that it was his observations of shadows cast by lunar mountains that led him to this conclusion. If anyone knows that this is wrong, feel free to reword. -- Oliver P. 10:32 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * No, you're verifiably right. Galileo described his methods in some detail in  The Starry Messenger, including his calculation of the height of lunar mountains.  This source, which may be considered more reliable than random websites, is available in translation: Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo. ed. & tr. Stillman Drake, Doubleday Anchor, 1957, still in print.  (Full disclosure: The coincidence of surnames is not coincidental.  But the royalties will not put my kids through school.)
 * Dandrake 02:35 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

GNU FDL infringement!
Argh! I've just found this biography of Galileo at the "Malaspina Great Books" website, and it's suspiciously similar to our article. In fact, they acknowledge on the page that their article is "Adapted from Wikipedia". However, they seem to be claiming copyright of the article ("This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books ©1995-2003"), and I can find no mention of their releasing it under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Clearly they are infringing the terms of the licence. What should we do about this?

Hmm... Investigating further, I see from Talk:Ernest Hemingway and Talk:Woody Guthrie that this has come up before - as early as last year, in fact. The Malaspina site has "adapted" hundreds of our articles, with acknowledgment, but without releasing their material under the GNU FDL. It seems that nothing has been done about it, though. Not that I can talk: I could win a world championship in apathy, if there was one... :) But I think something should be done... -- Oliver P. 10:32 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * In attempt to save the evidence, I am going to go through and copy the text of all of the articles containing the string "adapted from wikipedia." In case they decide to remove them.  Could someone else help me maybe, by starting at the end of the search results?  The page will be found at meta:Malaspina Great Books: GFDL infringement.  Just create a sub-space (like meta:Malaspina Great Books: GFDL infringement/article_name), and put the text there, and link to it from meta:Malaspina Great Books: GFDL infringement  Thanks.  MB 14:30 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I've submitted a few bot-friendly links to the http://archive.org crawler suggestion box. So as long as he doesn't have a robots.txt KEEP OUT sign, they should be archived within a few days. -- Tim Starling 15:01 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Cool. I decided that was a bit much anyhow, and I just saved the search results (since they all show that those pages contain the string "adapted from wikipedia.") See meta:Malaspina Great Books: GFDL infringement if you need to see them.  MB 15:05 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I doubt he means any harm. Pizza Puzzle


 * Probably not. -- Tim Starling 15:01 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it matters if he means any harm. He is profiting off of our work (his site contains links to bookstores where he gets a cut).  So, I would say he owes wikipedia some money, and he definately needs to either release those articles under the GFDL, or remove them.  I'm just trying to cover our bases just in case.  MB 15:05 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * If Malaspina had simply noted that the bios were released under the GFDL (with the appropriate text), then nobody would owe anybody any money. Thus I doubt that we can get any from the site just because those notices weren't there (but IANAL). And given the links to Wikipedia, I believe that Great Books acted in good faith. We just need to point out the correct way to use the GFDL. -- Toby Bartels 15:50 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Note: This has been posted to wikiEN-L, so there may be discussion there that can't be found here. -- Toby Bartels 15:50 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Old business
En garde.

Having started the process of improving (as I think!) the organization of G's scientific work in the article (still missing a couple of categories), I'm looking at the physics. I modified the reference to experimental work in "dynamics", because Galileo's approach to the science of motion was kinetic, not dynamic. That is, he studied how things move, without developing any theory of the forces acting on them. Is this non-neutral? Maybe it needs some expansion and due hedging in the article. If you can find examples of his emphasizing the causation of motion by forces (as Descartes and Newton did), please cite. Copy to René Descartes, please, since he considered Two New Sciences to be of little value precisely because it didn't speak of the "causes" of motion.

Likewise, if anyone can find a sense in which G's work in physics "paved the way" for Kepler's, please explain. Even chronologically, it's hard for work published in 1638 to have paved the way for someone who had died 8 years before. (G had done experiments 30 years earlier; but they were unpublished to such an extent that their very existence was disputed during much of the 20th century.)

Galileo, to be sure, is the sort of subject that can hardly be named without starting a flame war. (At least one can walk into a Galileo clinic without fear of being shot down.) A weighing of contrary views is necessary, and it is not always easy to know what is actually controversial and what is Flat-Earth stuff. It will be no secret that I consider some aspects of Galileo's life and works to be less controversial than some people do. But need we hedge and double-hedge everything?

"... is often credited with being one of the first..." Perhaps the matter of being one of the first can be established on the same sort of basis as Thomas Jefferson's being one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence. The moderates might say that G is "widely believed" to have been one of the first to exploit the experimental method and to insist on mathematical descriptions; while the radicals will say he is "generally" believed to be that. But until someone shows who doesn't believe that G was "one of" the first, I incline to a still more radical view: he was one of the first.

In fact, I know who might dispute the point: an expert in the history of science in Islamic civilzation. I personally woud be delighted to see a serious presentation of experimental and quantitative work in physics in the great age of Islam. Then we could present this point accurately and not vaguely, with a link to real information on earlier work. Till then&mdash;till we get something better than the irrelevant screed that an anonymous one-shot contributor put in History of physics recently, and briefly&mdash; we're stuck with the European historical record we've got. (Will the Chinese now pick up the gauntlet? All the better.) Dandrake 23:02 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Being a newcomer, I have only recently got around to reading the Archives in any detail. It would be uncool to revive all the slanging matches from whenever that was&mdash;

yeah, I can read the archive history, but it sure is nice now that people are sometimes signing and dating their entries&mdash;

but there's a pretty remarkable amount of stuff that ignores facts, goes against that which can be established on firm evidence (if you don't like the word "facts") or simply ignores the possibility of establishing anything on firm evidence. The latter is particularly unfortunate in an encyclopedia. So here, in honor of Leo Szilard, whose posthumous memoirs use the term, is "my version of the facts" relevant to stuff that at this moment is in the Archives.

In Archive 1 we find "When Galileo was defending the copernican model, it was not scientifically superior to the Ptolemaic system. Copernicus still tried to use circular orbits, and as they failed, had to use epicycles and other resources of Ptolemaic kinematics. Only after Kepler's work (that was largely ignored by Galilei) was incorporated in the theory, and Newton's law of gravity gave a sound physical basis to the whole system, was the heliocentric model undoubtedly superior."

When Galileo was defending the Copernican model, it was already superior, or at least sufficiently arguably superior to be worthy of serious and unfettered argument. There is no need to give an inch on this point. It was arguably not superior in Copernicus's time, and I stress "arguably". Now why would anyone assume that nothing relevant had been discovered in the interim? The popular stuff on Galileo is full of things that supposedly bore on the argument, and the anti-Galileo crew like to argue about them (speciously); so it's hard to see how anyone can claim ignorance here. Conveniently, the Galileo article now contains some brief comments on how new astronomical discoveries affected the argument.

I see in a later post, "Sunspots? No one even knew about sunspots' existence, much less their motions, until 1612, and Kepler had put forth elements for an elliptical orbit of Mars in 1609, with the other planets following thereafter, so there wasn't any time for an early Copernican system to explain sunspots. User:Shimmin " What Kepler has to do with it is not obvious. What is perfectly obvious is that the status of the argument for heliocentrism in Copernicus's time is irrelevant to the merits of the case for which Galileo was put on trial.

We also find, 'Also, despite what is said, the Church did not approve the Ptolemaic system as real. It simply stated that both were simply devices to predict positions. It was Galileo who tried to force an acceptance of the Copernican system as "real."'

Well, "...that the earth moves around the sun and that the sun stands still in the center of the universe without motion from east to west is contrary to Sacred Scripture..." This is Cardinal (Saint) Bellarmine, letter to Galileo, 1616. What part of contrary to Sacred Scripture don't you understand? Or are we to believe that the Church held to Scripture only as a convenient device, not as describing reality?

Bellarmine did believe that it should be permissible to teach Copernican ideas as a convenient device. In this, the man who burned Bruno was a moderate; the Dominicans wanted Copernican ideas banned absolutely. But at no time during the controversy did he or the Church treat the moving sun and immobile earth as a mere device. Whether Galileo went too far in asserting the truth of heliocentrism is another question, but maybe not one of any significance to the Galileo article. Submitted by dandrake, whose login had, curse the hasty timeouts in this system, expired before the Save page button had been hit-- 209.204.169.149 02:38 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Recanation and sentence
Making some effort to keep this to things that could be relevant to the improvement (or maintenance) of the quality of the article, and not wanting to turn it into a general debating society:

Ed Poor asked, and this surely is relevant to what the entry ought to say, What exactly was he "forced to recant"? The mobility of the earth?

What were the terms of the "life-long house arrest" and when did it start? Was he guarded, told not to leave his estate, or what?

And I don't think this has been clearly answered. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.html has the full text of the recantation, along with the indictment and other things. (Since they don't cite a printed source. I've briefly checked that text against a scholarly printed source, and it's good.) Excerpts:

"...I, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth was not the centre of the same and that it moved, and that I was neither to hold, defend, nor teach in any manner whatever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine; and after having received a notification that the said doctrine is contrary to Holy Writ, ..." and later, "...wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies,..." So, yes, he did have to recant the motion of the earth and its orbiting the sun and all that.

The house arrest is, I think, well described in Galileo's Daughter. It started the moment he was sentenced. At first he couldn't even go home: he was required to stay and do penance during some months at the home of the archbishop of Siena. Actually that was a good thing, as the archbishop was a very friendly host. In general, his sentence was far from imprisonment in a dungeon, and he was, most of the time, not ill-treated. But it was house arrest: a famous example is that when he wanted to go to see a doctor when suffering from a hernia, he couldn't do that without formal permission. And he didn't get permission.

As to his sentence, there is one point on which the article is not hostile enough to the Inquisition. I don't want to rewrite the whole Inquisition section&mdash;too much work, when White is unreliable and his critics are all wet, in my extremely humble opinion&mdash;but if anyone did, this would have to get proper treatment and not the passing mention I put in a few days ago: Publication of any and all of Galileo's books was banned. Not just the Dialogue, but everything he had written before, and anything he might write in the future, regardless of any possible relevance to the Faith. This was done essentially in secret, and Galileo didn't even find out about it till later, when he wanted to publish a book on physics. Any revision of our ideas of whether the Inquisition worked to suppress the advancement of learning will have to include this. Dandrake 04:26 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)