Write an essay, based on evidence from the documents presented here, in which you discuss the efforts by Copernicus and Galileo to gain acceptance for their theories. How did they reconcile their new scientific understanding of the universe with the inherited wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the Christian Bible?
Background:
Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and Italian mathematician, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), were leading figures of what historians refer to as the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus famously questioned the widely-accepted geocentric (“earth-centered’) model of the universe developed by Aristotle and Ptolemy in ancient Greece. Galileo, using telescopes unavailable to Copernicus, observed many details about the appearance and motion of heavenly bodies that supported and improved upon the Copernican system. At the same time, he articulated a concept of a universe that is rational, predictable, and subject to mathematical laws. In doing so, he challenged centuries of ideas about the nature of God, humanity, and the physical world. Galileo’s publication of his findings in 1638 led to his being put on trial before the Roman Inquisition, a court charged with maintaining theological orthodoxy.
Assigned Readings:
1. Galileo’s Letter to Christina of Tuscany:
https://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/certainty/readings/Galileo-LetterDuchessChristina.pdf
2. Copernicus, “On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres”:
http://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/Cosmology/Copernicus.html (Links to an external site.)
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