true genius

Yay! I'm glad we got more info on Galileo because I found him to be so interesting in last week's reading. I really didn't know much about him before. I didn't even know there wasn't an accurate measure of time until he came along. Something that we take for granted like a watch (which we pretty much are slaves to now) actually is quite complicated when you really think about it. I'm also amazed that he invented his own telescope where he viewed even the rings of Saturn. And to figure out that the light from the moon is in fact reflection... wow. I also liked getting a more personal look at the man who was Isaac Newton. He looks kinda scary in his picture. I felt really bad for him that he lived such a miserable life, being all secluded and grouchy and tense. Maybe I'm just being stereotypical here, but it seems to me that the more a human looks into their own mind, the more they draw away from those around them. It's like a tipping scale... you take time, effort, and contemplation from having a healthy social life and give it to the broadening of your mind. I've yet to meet a mathematical or scientific genius who isn't a bit awkward socially.

Absolutely Absurd!

I got a kick out of reading the "Crime of Galileo." You can almost hear the "holy office" sputtering in protest at the "absurd" notion that the sun is in fact fixed and that the earth revolves around it. I'm sure that feeling like they were center of the universe was grounds for a lot of the self-righteousness I detected in it. Anything to make his "holiness" feel less significant must have been quite a blow. I was wondering what Galileo's punishment was since he was found guilty of heresy, so I looked it up: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Galileo.html, an interesting read of Galileo's biography. He was sentenced to be imprisoned for life but it ended up just being on house arrest for the rest of his life. What boggles my mind is that it wasn't until 1992 that his name was "half" cleared! Pope John Paul II said that errors had been made by those who convicted him but never actually stated that Galileo had been wrongfully judged. Talk about beating around the bush! What, was he afraid of blatantly saying that "holy men" were wrong? Something I didn't get was where those men in Galileo's day said that what Galileo proposed went against scripture; that the bible said that earth was the center of the universe. Ummm... where? Never heard that one. unless I misunderstood their stance, I'm pretty sure the bible doesn't state "earth is the center of the universe."