A Conversation for Galileo Galilei - Astronomer

I blame Aristotle...

Post 1

Uncle Ghengis

Of course the Church was wrong in believing that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. But they didn't get the idea from the Bible. Instead, they got it from Aristotle - whose ideas were very pervasive at the time.

Galileo was one of the first true experimenters - as opposed to Aristotle who thought that you could establish the truth merely by having a couple of wise men to debate a matter.

Galileo also showed (by experiment) that things don't fall at different rates by virtue of their weight - all things fall at the same rate (and accelerate as they do so) - Aristotle was wrong about that issue too.

There is a very good BBC summary of Galileo's life at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/galilei_galileo.shtml

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I blame Aristotle...

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