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00:30In 1564, the year that gave England Shakespeare, Galileo was born in Pisa, in Italy, in the
00:59cradle of the Renaissance. But Galileo was predestined for trouble. His father was as
01:08argumentative as Galileo was to become. The open-minded and broad education that the young
01:15Galileo was given in music, literature, art, and science, guaranteed that he could never
01:22hold his tongue and suffer in silence. I think one of the significant things about Galileo's
01:28youth was the influence of his father, Vincenzo Galilei. Now the thing about Vincenzo was that he
01:35was very important in the musical revolution of the time, and he helped to progress music
01:42from medieval polyphony to more modern sort of musical structures. Now the significance of that
01:50for Galileo himself was that his father held very strong views about the negative impact of rigid
02:00theory. His view was that dogmatic views about how music should be performed effectively prevented
02:09music from developing. Now if you look at Galileo's later career as a scientist, you find that he's
02:17trying to present the same, exactly the same argument as his father. He held quite firmly that
02:24rigid views, in these case the views of the Aristotelians and the Scholastics, well, when held
02:32dogmatically, prevented the development of science. And that was something that I think one could say
02:39summarized his whole career as a scientist, the way he put himself in opposition to that kind of
02:45dogmatic view of science. Most of his childhood is unrecorded, but as a young boy his fascination
02:55with mechanics showed that even then his was an inquiring unfettered mind. It was this attitude
03:03that was to lead later to triumph and catastrophe. Under the watchful eye of his father, Vincenzo,
03:12Galileo learned to paint, play the lute, and write poetry. In the dangerous days that awaited him,
03:20his music and painting provided a great source of comfort. The boy Galileo did not go to school
03:27formally until 1574, when the family moved to Florence. The tremendous importance of the
03:35Renaissance was a sudden upsurge of interest in knowledge. The rediscovery of the works of
03:41people such as Plato and a renewed interest in the kinds of ideas that people like Plato
03:46were putting forward, plus developments in music, in the arts, and Galileo fits very well into that
03:53framework indeed. Medical school at university in Pisa brought the first rumbles of discontent
04:01and tilts against authority that were to become his hallmark and downfall. There, his stormy
04:10temperament earned him nothing more than the nickname, the Wrangler. And it was at Pisa that
04:17he first came up against the theories of the Greek philosopher Aristotle that were to dog him at
04:23every turn. It was the fight to cut out the dead wood of Aristotle's theories, unquestioned for
04:31centuries by church and state alike, that proved his undoing. From now on, the shadow of Aristotle
04:39was to blight his life. Galileo never accepted any statement at face value. Proof by experiment
04:48was what he demanded, a new and exciting attitude. Only one episode in his university career pointed
04:56to the way the young firebrand was to spend the rest of his life. Galileo noticed that chandeliers
05:04swinging in the University of Padua always had the same length of swing, same time of swing. This
05:10is to say it was isochronic, which means that the swing from one side to the other took the same
05:15amount of time whether the swing was this far or this far. It actually only applies with smaller
05:20angles, but essentially it laid the basis for a way of forming a clock, because there was a regular
05:26period of time between the one side of the swing and the other, no matter however long the swing
05:31might be. The story itself may or may not be apocryphal, but in some ways it stands for the
05:37kind of science that Galileo was presenting and therefore has enormous symbolic value. And I
05:43think its significance lies in two areas in particular. The first is that the observation
05:50itself is what scientists call counterintuitive. In other words, it's very unexpected, the idea
05:57that a pendulum will have the same period, in other words it will take the same length of time
06:01to swing no matter how far out it is, is a counterintuitive observation. So I think that's
06:07one element of its significance, but far more important, I think, in terms of the story of
06:12Galileo, is it's a story about exact mathematical measurement of the world as observed. Now,
06:20Galileo, as you know, was a mathematician. He was passionately dedicated to mathematics,
06:29but it wasn't simply an interest in mathematics as a subject in its own right. He believed,
06:34and he's quoted as having said publicly, that the language of nature is written in mathematics. So
06:43for him, mathematics wasn't simply a tool and it wasn't simply an intellectual interest,
06:47it was the very script by which we would understand nature. So the story of the
06:54swinging chandelier is symbolic of his dedication to the idea of exact measurement of natural
07:00phenomena, rather than simply sitting back and speculating about it, as he accused the
07:08Aristotelians of doing. He despised blind adherence to authority, and he found medical
07:16studies full of such unthinking obedience. As a result, he left university in 1585 without a
07:25degree. True or not, the story of the chandelier shows that Galileo was fascinated by measurement
07:34and the problems of physics. As yet, Galileo was an unknown force in the world of science. True,
07:44after leaving university, he had immersed himself in mathematics and physics, but he needed
07:50recognition and a university chair in order to carry out research and take his studies further.
07:56His frustration grew. Nevertheless, he turned his powers of analysis to the problems of
08:04gravity and flotation, and began to establish his reputation. Then, in 1588, he was invited to
08:14address the Academy of Florence. This was the chance he had been praying for, and he seized
08:21the opportunity greedily, preparing himself as he would later do at his trial. With razor-sharp
08:30and attention to detail, he, Galileo, was ready to challenge the world. And surprisingly, he did
08:40so with tact, not a quality for which he was later to be known. Combining mathematical analysis with
08:48a thorough knowledge of modern and ancient literature to deliver a triumphant lecture,
08:54his reputation was assured. Soon, he had the post he longed for. In 1589, the Wrangler,
09:04now aged 25, was appointed professor of mathematics at his old university, Pisa.
09:11And he would stay true to his name. From the new status he had acquired, he would swoop down on
09:20narrow-minded thought, smash the dead hand of ignorant authority. His attack started immediately.
09:27The experiments at the Tower of Pisa possibly never happened. It's been much debated over the
09:34years. Aristotle's theory was that bodies fell according to their weight, so the heavier the
09:40body, the faster it would fall. Galileo disagreed with this and actually disproved it, but he did
09:46this mathematically. The experiment itself may never have actually taken place, but the idea
09:50would be that you would drop two equally sized and equally shaped bodies in the same medium,
09:56i.e. in this case air, and they would drop at different rates, or at the same rate. If they
10:01dropped at the same rate, it would show that Galileo was correct. They did drop at the same
10:05rate, Galileo was correct. Galileo's approach to science was innovative and revolutionary. In an
10:14age of superstition, he was bound to arouse suspicion, but in using mathematics to solve
10:21the problems of physics, and in his geometrical and numerical analysis of the way the world works,
10:27he set the pattern for research to the present day. Yet within this approach lay the seeds of
10:35his downfall, for in his treatise On Motion, written at this time, he shows himself open to
10:43the thought that the Earth rotates on its own axis. From there it was only a small step to
10:51accepting and promoting the view first put forward by the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus,
10:57who had died some 45 years before. He had declared that the Earth orbited the Sun and was not the
11:07center of the universe, the heliocentric doctrine. Aristotle's view, exactly the opposite, was in
11:17line with teachings of the Church. To defy it meant to face a charge of heresy, and to risk
11:24the horrible death that this brought in its wake. It was the challenge to this view that brought the
11:31house down around Galileo's head. I think it's important to emphasize that Galileo was not
11:38arguing against Aristotle per se. Indeed in one of his later pamphlets he explicitly says that
11:44he believes that Aristotle, had he been alive at the time of Galileo, would have subscribed to the
11:51Galilean principles that he was expounding. Both men were committed to the view that in order to
11:58understand nature one had to observe nature very carefully. But what Galileo was arguing against
12:04wasn't Aristotle per se, but the Aristotelians of his own day. People who had taken Aristotle's
12:12theories and turned them into dogma. People who refused to accept alternative propositions. There
12:20is for instance a story of one of his colleagues at the University, a professor, who refused to
12:26look through Galileo's telescope for fear of what he would see. Because to this man he knew
12:32what the universe was like, because Aristotle had told him what it was, and he believed it
12:37implicitly and saw no further need to examine it more closely. The city of Padua appeared to offer
12:44Galileo all that he could desire. Renowned for its freedoms and independence of thought, it seemed
12:52ideal place for a new beginning and a continuation of his work. Material success and professional
13:00reputation grew side by side. Now began a time of intense and fruitful work for Galileo. Lecturing,
13:08teaching privately, and researching. And amongst his other achievements, I think Galileo can be fairly described as the father of modern mechanics as we currently understand it. Now the principle of
13:21inertia itself is relatively straightforward. Put in formal language, it states that it is the tendency of a body to remain at rest or in uniform motion until an external force is applied. In other words, what this means is if an object is stationary, it will remain stationary until you apply an external force, say you push it. If it's travelling, it will travel uniformly
13:50in a straight line until an external force is applied to it to alter its direction. Say if you roll a marble down a hill, it will keep going in a straight line until it meets a bump or a hole, and then it will change its direction. Now as far as we know, this principle was first identified by Galileo and then developed by Newton later on in his first law of motion. And still he had energy to develop a workshop for producing scientific instruments. And on top of that,
14:20designing large pieces of equipment himself. Despite this feverish activity, or perhaps because of it, Galileo took a mistress, the lovely Marina Gamba, with whom he lived for 10 years and fathered three children, two girls and a boy. The youngest girl, Maria Celeste, was sensitive and gentle, and during her life in a convent, carried out a long correspondence with her father.
14:50One that he valued greatly and which brought him comfort in some of the loneliest and most frightening periods of his life. When Galileo left Padua, he also amicably left Marina. But Galileo was not one to take the path of least resistance. If there was no real reason to be restless, he would find one. And he now wanted to return to Florence.
15:18Besides, he was tired of the constant round of teaching. In 1609, an object arrived in Italy that was to change Galileo's situation dramatically and completely. It flung Galileo into the wrath of the Inquisition and almost cost him his life. The telescope.
15:42Excitement was at fever pitch in Italy, although this first telescope was primitive. No more than an innovative toy. Once in Galileo's hands, however, it was to alter the way mankind perceived his world profoundly and irrevocably.
16:02As soon as he could, Galileo got himself a description of the instrument and rushed home to build his first telescope that very night.
16:32It was not very convenient for his looking glass, but it was turned down on account of the fact that these were springing up everywhere and it was a very simple design. In 1609, Galileo himself, for the first time sometime in July, saw a telescope. It magnified about three times, but Galileo was actually able to increase this to 30 times by increasing the focal length and cleaning the tubes. Again, a question not so much for inventing something, but seeing the idea and perfecting it absolutely. Galileo was very good with his hands.
17:01The problem with the Dutch telescopes was that they showed things upside down, which wasn't so much a problem for looking at the stars, but it was definitely a problem for looking at ships and so on and so forth. This was because they had two convex lenses. Galileo used a concave lens and a convex lens, so the object itself looked the right way up.
17:17Galileo developed the telescope and he developed it for a very precise reason. He wanted to use it for scientific purposes and specifically to observe the heavens, so he needed telescopes which would give him finer resolution and he spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of his own resources trying to develop the telescope until, as he claimed, he developed one which magnified the heavens by 2,000 times.
17:46Although I'm not sure whether that's an exaggeration or not. Nevertheless, because he wanted to observe the heavens and had discovered things about the heavens that intrigued him, then he had an impetus to refine the telescope. And I think that it's fair to say that his efforts have helped the telescope to develop into quite a precise instrument.
18:10The opportunity for Galileo to make his next step forward was not long in coming. When the Senate was considering whether or not to buy one of these new instruments, Galileo immediately offered to make a better one. To his joy, the Senate agreed to wait and see what he could come up with.
18:31Galileo set to work immediately, using the best Venetian glass for the lenses, testing and rejecting time and time again, struggling with the problems of distortion and magnification until, by late August, he had a telescope that he was sure would enhance his reputation. It could magnify nine times.
18:54When he presented it to the Senate, success was instantaneous and resulted in him being awarded the chair of mathematics at Padua University for life, together with a salary of 1,000 florins a year.
19:09The popular view of Galileo is dropping balls off the Tower of Pisa. I think the intellectual view of Galileo is as a giant, a man that championed the freedom of inquiry and who championed exact measurement of natural phenomena.
19:28This was just the beginning. Galileo turned his whole workshop over to the production of telescopes in the attempt to make the magnification even better. Inevitably, it was only a short time before he succeeded and had a magnification of 30 times. It was this telescope that he turned excitedly towards the heavens.
19:51What Galileo saw through his telescope astounded him. The skies opened up their secrets and wonders. With every new discovery, evidence for a moving Earth was presented to him. But the sights themselves were breathtaking to the 17th century observer.
20:12In his small volume called The Starry Messenger, Galileo wrote,
20:19It is a most beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the moon about 30 times larger. And one may know with certainty that it is due to the use of our senses that the moon certainly does not possess a smooth and polished surface.
20:37It is rough and uneven, just like the surface of the Earth itself, is everywhere full of vast protuberances, deep chasms, lofty mountains, and deep valleys.
20:52Aristotle had claimed otherwise. The discoveries flooded in. The Milky Way was found to be a collection of stars. There were stars never seen before, so numerous, said Galileo, as to be almost beyond belief. And then he found that the four satellite planets of Jupiter were in fact in orbit around it.
21:18Another nail was about to be hammered into the coffin of Aristotelian theory.
21:22In Aristotle's universe, there was only one sense of motion. This was the Earth. Everything else either revolved around the Earth, fell to Earth, or was pushed away from Earth.
21:32The discovery of the moons around Jupiter showed that there were two senses of motion. This was more in keeping with certainly either Tychonic, but also Copernican systems of the universe, whereby the moon would revolve around the Earth, and the Earth would revolve around the Sun. This was two senses of motion.
21:49If you have two senses of motion, there's no reason why you shouldn't have three. And so the discovery of the moons around Jupiter, although they don't conclusively prove that the Earth went round the Sun, almost took away the reason why one should not believe it, that there was only one sense of motion.
22:06When Galileo first observed the moons of Jupiter, he was astonished. At first he thought he was observing fixed stars. But when he looked again, he noticed that those fixed stars had moved. And he spent some time looking at their movement and realised that they were rotating around Jupiter.
22:25Now he never got around to observing and recording the rotations of the moons precisely, and he suggested in one of his pamphlets, The Starry Messenger, that other astronomers should do that. But what he did suggest was that there in Jupiter, with its moons orbiting around it, was a small model of the solar system as he conceived it, with in this case the Jupiter taking the part of the Sun, and the moons taking the part of the planets.
22:55In particular, the Earth.
23:26Not with a huge increase in salary, or the title of philosopher and mathematician to the Grand Duke, and all Europe talking about him. He resigned his post at Padua and returned to Florence.
23:40Almost immediately, his studies of the night sky led him to the discovery that Venus must be orbiting the Sun, and not the Earth, thus adding more weight to the Copernican theory of a moving Earth.
23:55As Galileo became more open and confident, his enemies became more irate and determined to squash the upstart astronomer.
24:05Unaware that a storm of unbounded ferocity was about to break over him, Galileo went to Rome to persuade the Catholic Order of Jesuits of the truth of his observations.
24:18In this, he was completely successful. He was well received by the Pope, feted wherever he went, had his new instrument renamed as a telescope, and returned to Florence buoyed with his good fortune.
24:36In Florence, his detractors had gathered around an arrogant academic named Ludovico della Colombe, and their plan was simple, to let Galileo's defense of his own iconoclastic views do the damage for them.
24:54Galileo was a very arrogant man. He was very proud. This led him into trouble throughout his life. Essentially, he spent almost all of his life defending himself against his perceived critics and people who he said had taken away his ideas.
25:09He was a dedicated scientist. He believed in the power of exact measurement, and that's what drove him. He was systematic, he was careful, he was imaginative.
25:21And I think when he was confronted by dogmatism and ignorance, which, from his view, interfered with the progress of science, I think he became very irritated and quite courageous.
25:34Slowly, they pushed Galileo towards his fate. There were violent arguments about whether shape was the deciding factor in keeping an object afloat, and Galileo fell victim to his own fiery character and inability to put up with fools.
25:53He began to expostulate theories that were wildly inaccurate, ranting about fire atoms that could pass through solid matter. This vitriolic side to Galileo was what many hoped would prove his undoing. They were wrong, and it was only by corrupt underhand means that they could finally trap him.
26:17The rupture came with the discovery by the German Jesuit Father Christoph Scheiner of mysterious sunspots, black clusters of spots on the sun's surface.
26:31When Galileo asserted, probably rightly, that he had observed them first, he tipped himself into a controversy as hot as the sun itself.
26:42Some, he said, had attempted to rob me of that glory which was mine by pretending not to have seen my writings, and subsequently trying to make themselves the original discoverers of such impressive marvels.
27:00Scheiner was enraged by the accusation. Typically, Galileo entered the fray as only he knew how, with all guns firing.
27:12Ludovico della Colombe set the trap and waited for Galileo to take the bait. It was done with one question. Is a moving earth contrary to the scriptures?
27:28Now too late, Galileo saw the flaming sword that guarded the church's authority turn towards him.
27:37For a short time, turning the tables once again, he reigned in his anger, and with searing intelligence took the wind out of Colombe's sails with a brilliantly crafted letter in his defense.
27:50The Bible, he said, should not be used by one philosophical school to beat another over the head.
28:00In December 1614, the black cloud burst with the ferocity that not even Galileo's delighted enemies could have foreseen.
28:11A Dominican, Tommaso Caccini, stood before his congregation and preached that mathematics was the work of the devil, and that mathematicians should be banned from Christian countries.
28:24Ideas of a moving earth, proclaimed Caccini, were tantamount to heresy, and the punishment for heresy was to be burned alive at the stake.
28:37Galileo's ideas were no longer safe to hold.
28:44Everyone knew of the Dominican, Giordano Bruno, who had insisted on holding to the Copernican theory of a static sun.
28:53He had been denounced to the Inquisition, probably tortured, and burned alive at the stake.
29:01Such was the punishment for heresy.
29:06It was not in Galileo's nature to stand idly by and allow the world to be jolted backwards by the rancorous outburst of one priest.
29:15Yet the Dominicans were close to the holy office of the Inquisition.
29:20How could he turn the sword from his throat and retain his scientific integrity?
29:26He began to feel afraid.
29:30In 1615, Galileo was summoned to appear before the Pope in Rome.
29:37Copernicus's book, expounding the heliocentric theory, had been suspended for correction, a term which meant that the sections considered heretical were to be removed.
29:53Galileo was to be brought before the Pope and warned that he should abandon the theory.
30:00Aware that failure to do so meant a condemnation by the Inquisition, Galileo determined to go through with the meeting,
30:08accept the warning, and thenceforth check his temper and wait for a more opportune time to push his beliefs forward.
30:18This was not enough for Galileo's enemies, who wanted him not just silenced, but out of action for good.
30:26Adversaries in high office did what all corrupt authorities do.
30:31Almost fatally for Galileo, they forged the document recording the meeting with the Pope and placed it in the Vatican archives.
30:41Later, it was to lead him to within a hair's breadth of the flames.
30:48Galileo, the document now recorded, had been commanded to relinquish altogether the said opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable,
30:59and that the earth moves, nor further to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing.
31:12As far as Galileo was concerned, however, the poisoned cup had passed, and he turned to scientific experiments once more.
31:22His interest in optics led him to the invention of the microscope, and he was preoccupied with measuring the speed acceleration of falling objects.
31:31But the controversy rumbled on. He could not keep his mouth shut when he was challenged.
31:38And, in his writings, he was unbeatable, a master of prose, satirical, clear, and as sharp as a razor blade.
31:49When Galileo's friend, Maffeo Bavarini, became Pope Urban VIII, the future looked full of promise.
31:56But how deceived he was in this view, Galileo was soon to find out.
32:02In 1632, when Galileo was in his mid-sixties, the dialogue of the two great world systems,
32:11a three-handed discussion on all the points Galileo wished to champion, was finished.
32:17It was an attempt to bring his theory of a moving Earth back in triumph, and it was a masterpiece.
32:24For Galileo, the existence of tides was the evidence he was looking for to demonstrate that the universe really was Copernican,
32:33that the Earth moved and the sun was stationary.
32:37As it happens, his theory was completely wrong, but nevertheless, he believed that he had the evidence that he needed.
32:44In essence, Galileo's theory was that as the Earth rotated, it created zones of acceleration and deceleration which affected the oceans
32:53and therefore created the tides.
32:55Now, he argued by analogy.
32:57If you take a bowl of water, for example, and move it backwards and forwards, you get an effect which is entirely like tides.
33:05You get the large swells and the water or the liquid moving to one side, then moving to another.
33:11Now, by analogy, Galileo claimed that the movement of the Earth was creating similar forces to those in the bowl of water
33:19as you move it backwards and forwards, and that this accounted for the tides.
33:24Ironically, he rejected what we now consider to be one of the real theories of the tides by rejecting the influence of the moon.
33:35And he did that because he was an opponent of astrology,
33:38and to him, the influence of the moon on the tides, which had been claimed as long ago as the time of Aristotle himself.
33:46To Galileo, it smacked of astrology and occult forces which he would have no truck with
33:52because that was not in the spirit of observational science for which he was standing.
33:58Galileo had miscalculated badly and brought the roof about his own head.
34:05Pope Urban was furious at this openly defiant act.
34:09The Jesuits, releasing years of resentment, did all that they could to stoke his anger.
34:15The book was suspended and underwent an examination.
34:20When Galileo received the result, he was, perhaps naively, totally dumbfounded.
34:27The dialogue was deemed to be unacceptable to the Church.
34:32But worse was to follow.
34:34Urban called in the Inquisition.
34:37Galileo's situation had become deadly serious.
34:42Galileo was in a state of shock when the Inquisitor at Florence called at his house with a formal summons.
34:49It demanded that he present himself at Rome within 30 days to answer charges that were to be brought against him.
34:58Then came the news he had feared.
35:01Galileo was to be put on trial for heresy.
35:08In Rome, there followed a series of hearings and interrogations
35:12that were to test Galileo's beliefs and intelligence to the full.
35:17As before, ill as he was, he argued with skill and brilliance to try and outmaneuver his detractors.
35:26But this episode was to bring him to his knees.
35:29This was no time for satirical prose.
35:32He was fighting for his life.
35:34For his honor.
35:36For the truth.
35:39From the archives of the Vatican came the forged document,
35:43commanding him not to hold, teach, or defend the Copernican theory in any way.
35:50Galileo protested that the document did not contain the truth.
35:55That the document did not portray the facts correctly.
35:59But it was a useless effort.
36:02The dialogues clearly went against the instruction.
36:06There was no way out.
36:11The Inquisition was not squeamish.
36:14They knew how to make people confess.
36:16They would keep looking for a weakness.
36:19Unless he admitted guilt.
36:23Friends begged Galileo to plead guilty.
36:26Swallow pride and vanity.
36:29Admit to having forgotten about being told to drop the theory of the moving Earth.
36:33And stay alive.
36:36His life rested in his own hands.
36:39How would he decide?
36:41There's been a lot of exaggeration about the Inquisition.
36:44Now I personally wouldn't want to defend it as an institution.
36:48But when the Inquisitors attempted to extract confessions from people,
36:53I think that the evidence suggests fairly strongly that their favoured method
36:57was simply to tire out the people that they were questioning.
37:01They would keep them up.
37:03They would deprive them of sleep.
37:05They would fire questions at them to break down their resistance.
37:08A technique, incidentally, which is used by security forces the world over in the 20th century.
37:13So I don't think that the idea of using these horrible instruments of torture
37:19is necessarily accurate.
37:21And I certainly don't think that they used those kind of methods with Galileo.
37:25Because, again, we've got to remember that Galileo was the friend of popes
37:29and the friend of bishops.
37:31There was no chance of arguing his case.
37:34Galileo had a clear choice.
37:36Was truth worth dying for?
37:39Should he endure imprisonment, torture, and being burnt at the stake
37:43for his scientific beliefs?
37:45Should he sacrifice himself for the principles that he knew to be right?
37:49Did he, after all, possess the courage for scientific martyrdom?
37:56With the flames dancing in his mind's eye
37:59and the screams of other heretics ringing in his memory,
38:03Galileo appeared once more
38:05before the Commissionary General of the Inquisition and his assistants.
38:11The proud, arrogant seeker for truth
38:14was forced to confess his alleged sin.
38:18His humiliation was complete.
38:23My error, then, has been, I confess it,
38:26one of vainglorious ambition
38:29and pure ignorance and inadvertence.
38:33And in confirmation of my assertion that I have not held
38:37and do not hold as true the opinion which has been condemned
38:41of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun,
38:45if theirs shall be granted to me as I desire the means
38:49and time to make a clear demonstration thereof,
38:53I am ready to do so.
38:57Having confessed, Galileo now hoped for a mild sentence.
39:01But his erstwhile friend, the Pope, wanted vengeance.
39:05He wanted to destroy Galileo.
39:08The sentence was harsh.
39:11On his knees he waited, an old and broken man,
39:15trembling in fear beneath the long robe.
39:18His prison sentence was confirmed,
39:21as was the banning of his book.
39:24Then came the hardest part of all for the proud genius.
39:29I, Galileo,
39:31son of the late Vincenzo Galilei,
39:35Florentine, aged 70 years,
39:39have been pronounced by the Holy Office
39:42to be vehemently suspected of heresy,
39:45that is to say, of having held and believed
39:49that the sun is the center of the world and immovable
39:53and that the earth is not the center and moves.
39:58With sincere heart and unfeigned faith,
40:02I abjure, curse and detest
40:05the aforesaid errors and heresies.
40:10Stupidity, fear,
40:13the greatest enemies of truth had triumphed.
40:16The scientific movement in Italy crashed to a standstill.
40:22The relief when he was allowed to return to Florence
40:25and not imprisoned after all
40:27was marred by another bitter blow to the old man.
40:31His beloved daughter, Maria Celeste,
40:34whose daily correspondence had always comforted him,
40:38died in the spring of the following year.
40:41Galileo was heartbroken.
40:43It seemed he wished for nothing more
40:46than to join his daughter in death.
40:49But Galileo's fighting spirit could not be crushed.
40:53Within a short time, a visitor wrote that Galileo
40:56and his friend, a man called Piccolomini,
40:59were spreading papers all over the floor
41:03with such excitement that one could not weary of admiration.
41:08At the age of 69, he published
41:11Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations
41:14Concerning Two New Sciences.
41:17Far from being broken,
41:19he was once again on the attack
41:22with Aristotle as the whipping boy.
41:25It was another brilliant work,
41:28touching on his favorite topic of motion
41:31and acceleration,
41:33engineering and the philosophy of science.
41:37One phrase,
41:39any velocity once imparted to a moving body
41:43will be rigidly maintained,
41:45remains one of the foundation stones of physics to this day,
41:49proving how advanced Galileo was in his thinking.
41:53But finally,
41:55when his eyesight failed and he became blind,
41:59he could no longer continue his experiments.
42:02Having lived long enough
42:04for the construction of his satellite computer to be concluded,
42:08with which he intended to mark
42:10the past and future position of the planets,
42:13the bright light of his piercing, abrasive genius
42:17flickered and was extinguished.
42:20Galileo, the scourge of the narrow-minded and ignorant,
42:25died in 1642.
42:29Galileo's main legacy
42:31was as part of the 16th and 17th century scientific revolution,
42:35whereby he was one of the people
42:37to join natural philosophy to mathematics
42:40and take it out of the sphere of the Aristotelians,
42:43working in universities
42:45and just purely working off a reverence for Aristotle
42:49and using knowledge, so to speak,
42:51that was 1,000 years old
42:53and completely irrelevant to the modern world.
42:56He was an empiricist.
42:58He could prove things by looking at the real world
43:01and this sets in a whole new era in science.
43:04It leads up to Newton
43:06and all the scientific discoveries of the present day.
43:09The importance of his work,
43:11the principles he established in mathematics and mechanics
43:15that affect our lives today,
43:17is acknowledged now, some 440 years later,
43:20by the American space agency, NASA,
43:23as the Galileo space probe
43:25pushes ever wider the borders of scientific knowledge,
43:29just as he did.
43:31Although many people have said
43:33that Galileo didn't invent anything himself,
43:36and this is quite true,
43:38and that most of his greatest work
43:40was actually just an expansion of other people's work,
43:43one couldn't possibly say that he wasn't a genius.
43:46The man had a phenomenal talent of self-publicity,
43:49could always see the actual practical uses
43:52of all the abstract science that he was involved in.
43:55Now whether this was just a product of the Renaissance
43:58is a different matter.
44:00It has to be said that at another time
44:02Galileo wouldn't have been so fortunate
44:04with his sponsoring by the Medici family
44:07and with the amount of money he got
44:09and that also he wouldn't have been able to make the move
44:12from mathematician to natural philosopher.
44:14However, one would have to say
44:16that really Galileo was a genius beyond his time
44:20and that a lot of the things he invented
44:23and a lot of his insights
44:25were 60 or 70 years before his time.
44:28I think he was a giant thinker.
44:30I think he was one of the giants
44:32of the intellectual Renaissance
44:34and I think he was a giant of modern science.
44:37And although the forces of ignorance
44:40have the power to wreck a terrible vengeance
44:43on those who dare to stand in their path,
44:46Galileo Galilei,
44:47an artist, a musician, a philosopher,
44:50a mathematician,
44:52but above all a pioneer and rebel,
44:55dared to stand and face everyone
44:58in pursuit of the truth.
45:00We owe him a debt that can never be repaid.