Week 15 Blog: Galileo

During this week's reading I was most interested in Galileo. It may have been common knowledge for most, but I wasn't sure what happened to Galileo after the trial--so I googled it. This is what I found: After the trial he was put in prison for an indiscriminate amount of time. Wikipedia did not say how long he actually in prison, but was later allowed to move back into his house where lived out his life writing books (not on heliocentricity) and undergoing house arrest. The article did say that he eventually went blind, and that his later works were indeed esteemed by eminent people such as Einstein. Galileo is now referred to as the "father of modern physics." It is hard for me to accept the fact that Galileo spent so much time being punished for having beliefs that were actually true. It would be fun to go back into time with a rocket ship and take the archbishop on a ride into orbit, or maybe prove how eclipses work.