Galileo Galilei

1
Galileo Galilei

• The XVII Century

2
The Scientific Treatise

• Objective of the treatise
  a) to demonstrate a thesis
  
  b) to refute an opposing one
  c) to
  propose a model
• Topologies of the Treatise
  a) the debate
  on the concept of literature and poetics
  b) the methodological approaches of the
  new science (Galilei)
  c) the
  political debate (Machiavellis thought)
  d) the moral and religious
  treatise (Counter Reformation)
  e)
  general treatises on architecture, hydraulics,
  military art

3

• Can the scientific treatise be studied as a
  literary form?
• What is literature? Expression and formalization
  of the imaginary and of subjectivity . In this
  system
  a) the
  expressive level prevails over the referential
  b) connotation (subjective
  violence on language) prevails over the simple
  denotation (description of event, object,
  phenomenon)
• Enrico Falqui Anthology of the Italian Scientific
  Prose of the XVII
• Latest concepts of scientific treatises
  a) aesthetic value
  is not the determining factor
  b) the inclusion of the scientific perspective
  opens up literature to a variety of codes and
  forms c)
  scientific texts play an important role as they
  associate the history of culture to that of
  scientific thought in its epistemological and
  sociological implications
  d) science creates a multiplicity of languages
  that enrich literature

4
Chronology

• 1564 Born in Pisa
• 1580 studies medicine and mathematics at the
  University of Pisa
• 1585 abandons the university and dedicates
  himself to independent studies. Invents the
  Hydrostatic scale. Completes studies on the
  weight of solid matter
• 1589-92 starts to teach mathematics at Pisa
• 1592-1610 teaches mathematics at Padua. Meets
  scholars like Paolo Sarpi and Giovan Francesco
  Sagredo. Has three children with Marina Gamba
  Virginia, Livia and Vincenzo
• Perfects the telescope and directs his research
  to the sky

5

• Discovers the rough geology of the moon, the
  nature of the stellar matter, four of Jupiters
  satellites. The discovery of the mutability and
  corruptibility of the sky is a confutation of
  Aristotelian cosmology.
• 1610 publishes Sidereus nuncius. Acclaim and
  criticism follow. Receives tenure at Pisa
• 1611 travels to Rome to meet the Jesuit
  astronomer Clavio (Cristoforo Klan)
• 1612-13 his discoveries appear contrary to the
  doctrines of the church
• 1615 his theories appear to be heretical to the
  Dominicans who denounce him to the Inquisition
• 1616 the Inquisition condemns Galileo and the
  Copernican system. He can no longer teach them

6

• 1623 publishes Il Saggiatore. It is a polemic
  answer to some of Orazio Grassis essays about
  the genesis and nature of three comets that had
  appeared in 1618
• The election of Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini)
  gives Galileo new hopes
• 1624 Urban VIII welcomes him in Rome. Starts to
  write the Dialogue on the Two Chief Astronomical
  Systems
• 1632 the Dialogue is published amid polemics and
  enthusiasms. In the same year Galileo is in front
  of the Holy Office (Inquisition)
• 1634 he must abjure his theories but continues to
  work
• 1638 completes his masterpiece, New Sciences

7

• 1642 dies in his house of Arcetri
• Il saggiatore ( a special scale)Rebuttal of
  Grassis theories on the apparition of the three
  comets (Libra astronomica ac philosophica)
• It is in Italian rather than in Latin. The title
  is a metaphor (not a libra we need but a very
  precise instrument, a saggiatore)
• The work establishes for the first time the need
  for a methodological approach in the observation
  of astronomical events
• It refutes the possibility of arriving to the
  truth by accepting the wisdom of the ancient
  philosophers
• The mathematical method will help to understand
  il grandissimo libro delluniverso that is
  written in lingua matematica and whose
  characters are triangles, circles, and other
  geometrical figures without which it is like
  wandering in an obscure labyrinth

8

• The methodological and mathematical approach
  brings Galileo to a further discovery bodies
  have two different qualities
• Primary (objective) and secondary (subjective)
  qualities
• The primary qualities are calculable as far as
  the extension, the geometrical figure, the
  movement
• The secondary ones are secondary and subjective,
  they regard all the sensorial qualities (color,
  taste, odor etc.)
• The secondary qualities are the result of the
  encounter between these bodies and the human
  being, they are not inherent qualities of the
  bodies. The are real as far as they are perceived
  by man
• In this way he refutes the Aristotelian method,
  based for the most part on these sensorial
  qualities (warm and cold etc.). These are
  confused notions in his mind, they do not lead to
  a scientific knowledge

9

• In order to understand phenomena in a more
  objective and quantitative way, instituting the
  idea of measure which he utilizes in the
  observation and calculation of phenomena
• It is following this method that he was able to
  invent the water thermometer and reduce the
  sensations of warm and cold to an objective and
  mathematical control
• Important!!!
• Galileo adopts the vulgar Italian
  (antagonistic)
• His terminology reflects a process of
  simplification (antagonistic to the difficult and
  obscure language of traditional treatises) The
  word has to reflect the object
• The choice of the dialogue instead of the solid
  and systematic model proof of how the scientific
  method has transformed the literary form. The
  Galilean method is based on research, hypothesis,
  verification and therefore it requires
  discussion, confrontation, the clashing of
  opposing views.
• The treatise becomes the dialogue (dialectic)

10
Galileos Trial

• Two objectives of Galileos Dialogue
• Reception of the Dialogue
• Reasons for Urban VIIIs change of heart
• Galileos Reactions to the order of the Holy
  Office
• Why was Galileo afflicted after his talk with
  Niccolini
• Where lay the main difficulty of the accusation
• Galileos confession
• The sentence on June 22nd, 1633

11
The Return to Pure Science

• 1633 -10 months in Siena, as guest at the palace
  of Archbishop Piccolomini
• 1633 Return to Arcetri, solitude, loss of
  Celeste
• 1634-38 Ignorance root of all ills. Science as
  path to the truth
• Galileos works travel beyond the Alps
• 1638 N. S. appears in Leyden (Elzevirs) He is
  blind
• The Two New Sciences reworking and expansion of
  his Paduan studies (dialogue - testament)
• The treatise on motion (continuously reworked)
• Interlocutors in the dialogue Salviati, Sagredo,
  Simplicio

12

• First two days fragmentary investigations,
  unboroken succession of debates, on different
  subjects, digressions, acute observations
• The next two days new literary device Salviati
  reads aloud a Latin treatise on motion (by
  Galileo). The reading is only occasionally
  interrupted for clarifications by the
  interlocutors
• The Beginning of Fifth Day was published in 1674
  (Viviani)
• The Sixth Day(fragment) published in 1718
• Theme of the first two days the mechanical
  resistance (strength) of materials
• Polemic against Aristotelian mechanics for
  Galileo motion is possible in a vacuum

13

• Speed of fall of weights if the resistance of
  the medium is removed, all bodies will fall with
  equal speed.
• The vibrations of the pendulum and related
  acoustic phenomena are studied
• The Second Day is dedicated to statics
  (resistance)
• The third and Fourth days are dedicated to
  dynamics (totally new science as to the results
  and the methods applied)
• Fifth and Sixth days are incomplete (the fifth is
  concerned with the Euclidean theory of proportion
  - the sixth with the problem of the force of
  percussion)
• Mathematics (as a means and not an end in itself)
  is linked with technology, design, the study of
  natural phenomena

14

• The Two New Sciences is a Copernican work in it
  Galileo perfects his theory of motion, using the
  laws of inertia and acceleration to prove his
  beliefs
• It is not a Copernican manifesto, rather a work
  developed entirely in accordance with the new
  Copernican direction of modern science, deepening
  its principles and broadening its development
  (more import is given to mathematics than in
  earlier works - experience and logic had
  prevailed there)
• Sagredo affirms that to understand mathematically
  the cause of an event far outweighs the mere
  data obtained from the testimony of others, or
  even from repeated experiments. Does experience
  play a subsidiary role in Galilean method?

15

• Although Galileos method rests upon the
  experience, it has as its primary goal the
  resolution of observational data into general
  relations of a conceptual rather than an
  empirical nature. (Ernst Cassirer)
• In Galileos research processes the more
  important task falls to reason. By determining
  the mathematical relations between one experience
  and another, reason teaches us to transform the
  empirical accident into a necessity governed by
  laws.
• Galileo never confused mathematical deduction
  with physical demonstration. He understood the
  difference between hypothetical truth and factual
  truth
• Throughout his works he oscillates between
  recourse to the purest deductive method and
  energetic appeal to empirical observation
• Galileo intuitively senses the complexity of the
  problem of method and thus refrains from any
  dogmatic position, rationalist or empiricist