Thursday, December 11, 2008

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.

2 comments:

Anita's Blog said...

I thought this part of the reading was cool too. We got a little more info on just what Galileo's story was on his indictment and abjuration and even what life was like after his sencenting. I agree it would be cool to see the churches reaction to prove to them that Galileo and Copernicus were right.

redsawx said...

Its interesting how Galielo and Copernicus were able to think outside of the box to be able to come up with their hypothesis, with out technology we have today. Its too bad back then if you had the ability to help the world with your ideas you could be persecuted for it.