The People versus O.J. Simpson, the recent hearings to determine the “fit” of Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court Justice, and the Scopes Monkey Trial—all very high profile attempts at determining innocence or guilt and all international in coverage and interest. If television and social media had been around in the early 1600’s the trial of Galileo Galilei would undoubtedly have matched them all for interest and intrigue.
Galileo was born and raised in Pisa in 1564. He was the first of six children born to the musician and scholar, Vincenzo Galilei. His father’s dream for his son was for him to study and become a doctor, so Galileo entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. He eventually decided to pursue mathematics. The change in his core studies from medicine to math ignited his creative thinking process and discoveries began flowing from his mind.
The first discovery that brought Galileo attention was in 1609 when he built his first telescope. There were telescopes made in Europe that Galileo took and copied, while improving it. These telescopes could magnify up to three times, while the one he built could magnify any given object up to twenty times. This gave Galileo the opportunity to observe things that were never visible up close; such as the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, supernovas, and sunspots. While these were amazing discoveries, this is what started the doubts that Galileo had around the way the Solar System worked
Prior to Galileo’s findings, Aristotle was believed to have the correct teachings of the solar system, “According to Aristotle, the Earth was the center of the universe. All heavenly bodies, including the moon, were perfect spheres that moved around the Earth with circular motions (or combinations of circular motions), and the Earth was the only source of imperfection in the universe. The dark spots on the moon that been visible to man throughout the ages were explained away as parts of the moon that absorbed and emitted light differently than other parts– the surface itself was perfectly smooth,” (Helden, p. 1). This is what people believed before Galileo started to challenge those beliefs with his viewpoint on the moon not being perfect.
Galileo documented these changes that he observed from November 30th-December 18th 1609, in his book, Sidereus Nuncius. In these observations, he noticed many things about the moon, but for the most part, that they were not perfect spheres. Galileo observed, “…have a dark part on the side toward the Sun while on the side opposite the Sun they are crowned with brighter borders like shining ridges. From these and many other observations, Galileo concluded that the moon's surface consists of valleys, plains and mountains much like the surface of the Earth,” (Sidereus Nuncius, p. 41, 48-49). These findings contradicted the Aristotelian view of heavenly perfection.
When Galileo came to these conclusions, he was shocked. “how can the moon, a heavenly body, not be perfect and spherical? If the moon is imperfect, could there be other imperfect heavenly bodies as well? If heavenly bodies can be imperfect, why can the Earth not be a heavenly body?” (Helden, p. 1). Once the Catholic Church, the ultimate authority of the day, began hearing of these observations the trouble for Galileo began. These observations did not align with the teachings of the Catholic church—in fact, they were nearly a total contradiction of the commonly held belief that the earth was the center of the universe and all planets revolved around it. The church categorized Galileo’s principle beliefs as heresy and demanded that he renounce studying and teaching it. Not only did they ban Galileo from espousing such a theory but they also banned a book by Nicholas Copernicus, “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” which intimated that the earth actually revolved around the sun. The scientific experiments and theories by the pre-eminent scientists of the time were quickly negated and banned by the powerful church. The findings of Galileo would prove that the Catholic churches beliefs were wrong, which is why they tried to force Galileo to abandon his findings.
Galileo continued to research and advance his knowledge, until he was forced by Pope Paul V to make the trip to Rome. He left Rome with a warning to not spread the ideas of heliocentrism that he found, but no serious trouble. However, that changed years later. “Sixteen years after his first encounter with the church Galileo published his “Dialogue on the Two World Systems” in 1632, and the pope, Urban VIII, ordered another investigation against him. The church suspected that they would have a difficult time convicting Galileo of heresy so the charges brought against him were lesser in nature; he was tried on “suspicion of heresy” which although easier to prove carried much less stringent penalties. There was an effort put forth to gain a confession or admission of guilt but Galileo did not admit to a belief in heliocentrism. He stated that his dialogue espousing this theory was stronger than his support of a geocentric theory and this difference was caused by his desire to create an environment for a strong and vigorous debate on the two conflicting theories. The This time he was prosecuted, following the usual methods of the Roman Inquisition,” (Wolf, p. 1). Galileo was put on trial, offered a plea bargain, and pled guilty. His book and information were banned and he spent one day in prison. He was released after one day and sentenced to “villa arrest”. In an interesting side note from the trial it was possible that because he did not admit guilt the next step in the legal proceedings would have been some form of torture. Because of his old age and physical condition he was spared this punishment and only lightly reprimanded.
Even though the Catholic Church might have found Galileo guilty, his evidence and scientific discoveries proved that he was correct about his beliefs. Galileo’s findings were scientifically proven, the Catholic Church just wanted to reject them because they didn’t fit with their beliefs. There has always been a significant amount of controversy surrounding the events that brought Galileo to trial. First is the role of the Catholic Church; it is likely that the church was correct in bringing the charges against Galileo for several reasons. Galileo had been instructed by the ruling authorities of the church to desist from continuing his theory of Copernicanism. They had previously condemned the theories of Copernicus and yet Galileo continued to explore and attempt proving these theories by his scientific inquiry and observation. In 1616 Cardinal Bellarmine had officially communicated with Galileo and he was ordered to desist in the promotion of these theories. Bellarmine was known to be willing to concur with new and different scientific theories if they were able to be proven but in the instance of the planetary systems and orbits didn’t feel that with the equipment and proofs available at the time that the ideas were not definitive.
Despite the obstinate nature of the church and other leading authorities of the day, shortly after the death of Galileo and because of the way he changed mindsets about the acceptable parameters of gaining knowledge and developing theories based on inference and observation he was ultimately proven correct in his ideas, along with Copernicus.
There were several positive outcomes from the trial that Galileo endured. First, the hypotheses that he developed influenced the thinking and development of ideas by Sir Isaac Newton. Heliocentrism ultimately became scientific fact and Galileo’s early designs of balances and compasses enabled major improvements in instruments like microscopes and telescopes. His trial and the development of the Scientific Method of thinking was also advanced. Voltaire often used the struggles of Galileo to further the cause of objectivity and presented Galileo as a martyr for the cause of advanced thinking and the Scientific Method.
“Epper si Muove”…”yet it moves” is a quote attributed to Galileo at this trial. While there is considerable debate around the timing of the quote it clearly represents the true belief of this esteemed scientist. There is no question that his ability to observe, hypothesize and present cogent principles made Galileo a man with knowledge well ahead of his time. He moved the world, despite significant obstacles and in the face of the most powerful institution on earth, the Catholic Church, into a more progressive way of thinking and the theories he espoused were the pathway to a greater understanding of our universe.