Talk:Galileo Galilei/Archive 6

message: As you can read from Wikipedia Italy was established after the World War II, 500 years after Galileo was dead, and for this reason Galileo Galilei couldn't be Italian. Furthermore, as you can see the controversy concerning Science and Religion, Galileo was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, and still today the Italian State doesn't allow Patents for Public Interest Products and technologies, continuing the ban of scientists and intellectual thought considered hostile to the Catholic Church. 
The documentation concerning the Italian Patent form is available from any UPICA Office of any Chamber of commerce, or any Italian Consulate.  
PLEASE SEE THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE:  http://www.youtube.com/modernitaly
Wikipedia Complaint
Regards Benattiluca 14:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your knowledges about Italy might take advantage of a better studying of history. The assertion that Italy was estabilished after the World War II in particular is very funny. Plus, Italian doesn't necessarily mean related to Italian State, Italy is a far older entity, and needless to say that the Italian State has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church. --89.97.35.70 12:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Of course yes. Italians were existing before Italy was established, since that Italy was not an extemporary invention. Do you know that Dante and Petrarch both wrote poems dedicated to Italy? I'm afraid you don't. --Fertuno 22:04, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look at the talk page at Megas Alexandros for the same situation, someone claims that Alexander was Macedonian in the sense that he is from the republic of macedonia. They don't make difference between these entities, I mean there were even Italians before the Romans put Italy truly on the map. Samnites, Etruscans, Celts and more. Mallerd 17:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Galileo was  Italian

message: Long ago there was a discussion, with a consensus among the few participants, of refactoring the Church Controversy and moving it into a separate article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Galileo_Galilei#The_Trial._Again.3F
The arguments are no less right than they were then; and now the whole thing has been challenged on its quality (and it's about time).
I have started a Procrustean, not to say Draconian, approach. The long and disorganized section has been replaced with a short summary of events, together with a pointer to a new Main Article, Trial of Galileo. That article has been intialized, first with the full old text (to get it into the History) and then with a copy of the summary from this article. It's now fair game for the effort to create a proper, coherent page, based on primary sources where possible. (But all the old text is there to crib from.)
Let us try to keep the section in this article to a minimal length, treating, so far as possible, only of essential factual matters that are generally agreed on. (That'll keep it short!) --Dandrake 01:36, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but in the case of Galileo we have abundant documentation, a good selection of it recently translated into English in Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair.  In addition, there is a veritable "Galileo industry" of historians who have studied the evidence for the controversy from different points of view.  They pretty well define the range of acceptable historical  interpretations.  There's no need for further speculative interpretation.  SteveMcCluskey 01:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Refactoring the controversy

message: I just had to do a nasty little edit to reverse a change made by an editor's browser (mine, Firefox on a Macintosh) which took all the dash characters and automatically replaced them with some ugly gibberish. If the dashes had been represented by ampersand-n-d-a-s-h-semicolon, giving rise to "–", this wouldn't have happened.
I don't know whether people are trying to "simplify" the text by replacing those ugly html strings – character provided by their browser's particular character set; or some damn officious browser is going that for them; but it stinks. You CANNOT assume things about how other people's browsers will handle character sets, but you can and must assume they'll handle plain html.
Oh well, even if such things are done right, that wouldn't solve the problem with the multilingual stuff at the bottom of the article.Dandrake 23:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Character sets 

message: "Furthermore, he never accepted Kepler's elliptical orbits for the planets, holding to the circular orbits of Copernicus, which still employed epicycles to account for irregularities in planetary motions."
I strongly believe the epicycles were employed to account for retrograde motion, which was evidence that the planets revolved around the sun (as opposed to the Earth) and not evidence that planets moves in ellipses instead of perfect circles.  I could be wrong, however, so I'm reluctant to actually change it.  Also, does anyone know of a MATHEMATICAL formula that accounts for the position of an object that is a satellite to a satellite? (eg: the position of the moon around the sun?)
User:Tarayani 2:23, 09 Jan 2006 (EST)
:Galileo basically never took the time to learn Kepler's system.  Epicycles were used in Ptolemy's system to both explain retrograde motion and irregularity (i.e., the fact that the orbits are actually elliptical).  Copernicus still used epicycles and deferents, because even though heliocentrism explained retrograde motion in a natural way, it still didn't account for the irregularities of motion.  Copernicus rejected Ptolemy's equant, replacing it with the Tusi-couple.  Galileo didn't modify Copernicus.  As it stands, the sentence is pretty much correct, although it could use more detail.--ragesoss 18:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epicycles? 

message: On other sites, it lists the birth of Galileo's son as in 1525. Being as how Galileo was born in 1564, it seems quite impossible that his son was born in 1525. When was his son REALLY born (as in, what year)? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.124.63.215 (talk • contribs) 2006-03-22 15:50:45  (UTC)
he was born in 1606
A very valid point and i am curious as well, controversy/hypocrisy bothers meRateswiped 13:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  His Son 

message: What article about Galileo is complete without mention of his middle finger. savidan(talk) (e@) 02:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle finger 

message: Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician, who was born in Pisa, Italy on the 15th of Febuary, 1564. Although most mathematicians become famous after their death, Galileo was famous through his entire life as a mathematician and astronomer ending on the 8th of January, 1642.   His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a well known flute player, composer, theorist, singer, and teacher coming from a string of doctors so encouraged and forced his first son of seven, Galileo, into the University of Pisa as a medical student. Galileo had no interest in his medical studies so took mathematics and natural philosophy on the side beginning his mathematics career.   After much persuasion Vincenzo agreed to allow him to take classes in Euclid and Archimedes. The young mathematician began a career in teaching at the university and writing his first book, The Little Balance which described the Archimedes’ method about finding specific gravities using a balance. Galileo came to Florence in 1583 to study at the University of Florence under the court mathematician Ostilio Ricci. During this time he wrote De Motu describing how to find the rate of descent of falling bodies using an inclined plane. On his recent trips to Florence, Galileo meets a young woman by the name of Marina di Andrea Gamba with whom he never married but had two girls and one boy after his father’s death in 1591.
As of now, I am unsure if this is vandalism. However, it certainly was added in in appropriate areas, with repeated lead content and was added twice by 24.8.226.51. I'm not sure if this information is accurate and verifiable, but I'll put it here for the convenience of other editors. AndyZ t 23:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed from article 

message: "In modern terms, we consider Galileo's views on heliocentricity to be no fundamental advance. The Sun is no more the center of the universe than the Earth is (indeed, the question has no meaning, as apparently all locations can be equally regarded as the "center" of the universe). The Catholic Church held to the prevailing scientific opinion of the day, which was that the Earth was the center of the universe. Thus, for moderns, the key issue of this controversy was not the objective correctness of the theories being debated, but rather the morality of institutions (or persons) using physical force to shape acceptance of scientific beliefs."
This paragraph should be removed. I consider heliocentrism to be a more accurate theory than geocentrism, simply because having the sun as the 'center' of 'our little place' is more accurate than having us at the center. While this is a well articulated arguement i think it should, in no way, be considered canon for the article as it offers one persons' opinion or view on the matter and forms no basis for encyclopedia material.
:What's more "accurate" about having the Sun at the center of "your little place" than the Earth? You live on the Sun, maybe?  The rest of us are editing from someplace else. Geocentricity is a POV, but so is heliocentricity. Unless you're a plasma being who's gained access to Wiki, I happen to think geocentricity is more natural for both of us. However, the modern view of physics is that the universe doesn't have a center. Unless it's your navel.Sbharris 05:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, the universe doesn't have a center, but that doesn't mean that any POV is as good as any other. For any regular periodic motion there is a preferred frame of reference where all fictitious forces disappear. In modern physics this is called the center-of-momentum frame. When this frame is used for the motions of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and planets, all the planets will have elliptical orbits with focal points inside the Sun (or very close to the Sun in Jupiter's case). The Sun is almost motionless in this frame, so "heliocentric" is a perfectly valid label for the most accurate description of the solar system. --Shastra 09:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

text: So you say that the heliocentric model is more accurate because it more closely approximates the center of momentum frame. How does that relate? Momentum had not even been discovered yet, and Galileo contemporaries would have measured accuracy in terms of how well the models explained the observed planetary motions as seen on Earth against the backdrop of stars. Yes, there are sometimes reasons to prefer the heliocentric but there are also reasons to prefer the geocentric in some situations. Roger 09:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Galileo knew about momentum, but that's not my point. Of course there are reasons where accelerated frames are appropriate. When I pour wine into a glass while traveling on an airplane, a frame that is co-moving with that airplane is the most appropriate for coordinating my movements. But when looking at the motion of the planets, a heliocentric or center-of-momentum frame is the most appropriate. It doesn't matter if you know about galactic motion or not, or if you realize that a co-moving frame works better for local experiments. Galileo understood this principle of switching between viewpoints (he did invent the fundamentals of the Galilean transformation after all), but the Catholic Church authorities had no clue at all. --Shastra 18:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, sometimes the heliocentric frame is more appropriate. And sometimes the geocentered or Milky-Way-centered frames are more appropriate. Modern physics allows you to choose a convenient frame. Roger 19:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  This topic may be dead, however the more correct centricity seems to me to be a less relevant issue than that Galileo did much to demonstrate a centricity, any centricity other than a geocentric one.  That was a major achivement and break from accepted scientific dogma. 132.79.8.15 18:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The Catholic Church held to the prevailing theological opinion of the day, which was that the Earth was the center of the universe.
It would be more accurate to say that the Church held to what had been the prevailing scientific opinion for 100s of years. But the article is about Galileo, and the sentence doesn't really fit anyway. Roger 05:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The bottom of the church controversy section  

message: I removed the last point in the comparison GG-Bacon (which I tend to think is unnecessary as a whole): it stated that the Baconian method is 'too complicated to be useful for modern scientists', which is untrue. Similar approaches are used especially in 'modern' branches of biological sciences- see molecular biology (knock-in/out, partial gene transfer, RNA interference etc), pharmacology (esp. pre-clinical testing), and (before the shiny magic boxes of mol.bio came around) psychological assessment in broad screening studies. 
The point naming GG as the father of modern science was valid so I just placed it below the whole thing. Duagloth 09:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to go ahead and remove the chart comparing Galileo and Bacon, as I don't think is it appropriate to the article.  A more subtle and informative comparison should be possible merely by reading the entries for both Bacon and Galileo, and there isn't enough space in the article for such checklist comparisons between Galileo and other scientists or philosophers.  If there is an intellectually significant controversy about the relative achievement of these two it should be described, without a chart, in more detail (citing arguments appropriately) or given an article of its own.  ThaddeusFrye 19:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Having done this I do feel a little bad, since some information was lost by this deletion, and someone did work on that chart.  I hope someone will add a section on Galileo's "Scientific Method," which might include a paragraph in which G.'s ideas (after being described in their own right) are comparted to those of Bacon or others.  Did Galileo describe or employ a "method" as such?  It's an interesting question. ThaddeusFrye 20:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Don't feel too bad, you had a valid reasoning and I would have done the same; I will attempt to answer your question after i do some researchRateswiped 13:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sr. F Bacon 

message: I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information.  I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list.  Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article.  Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here.  Regards, Durova 15:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cultural depictions of Galileo Galilei]] 

message: Under "See also", there is some vandalism not in the basic text.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.139.113.156 (talk) 11:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandal 

message: I seem to have eliminated the vandalism from the main text.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.139.113.156 (talk) 11:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandal(2) 

message: Article says:
* His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial and not enforced, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future. 
# What is the source (book and page), please? Isn't this a confusion with the 1616 prohibition of any book, past or future, about Copernic and heliocentrism? Besides Galileo published another book after his arrest, and it wasn't forbidden in Italy. Note: this unsourced fact is mentionned on at least 3 pages: Galileo_Galilei and Galileo_affair and Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems
# Until then, can an editor please append  to this line? Thanks
62.147.38.11 07:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  requesting a fact or a {{Talkfact}} about the secret ban 

message: I'm a bit surprised that this Featured Article does not cite specific pages in its references.  The Harvard referencing style for citing books and articles calls for 
page numbers in almost all cases. The format is (Author Date:Pages), for example (Drake 1953:12-15); please note lack of comma and spacing.
Perhaps we can add pages as we edit and a really ambitious/heroic/masochistic person with a good library might specify pages for existing references.  --SteveMcCluskey 14:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pages missing in references 

message: I have removed the following material from the article: "In the 20th century some authorities, in particular the distinguished French historian of science Alexandre Koyré, challenged the validity of Galileo's experiments. The experiments reported in Two New Sciences to determine the law of acceleration of falling bodies, for instance, required accurate measurements of time, which appeared to be impossible with the technology of the 1600s. According to Koyré, the law was arrived at deductively, and the experiments were merely illustrative thought experiments. Later research, however, has validated the experiments. The experiments on falling bodies (actually balls rolling down an inclined plane) were replicated using the methods described by Galileo (Settle, 1961), and the precision of the results were consistent with Galileo's report. Later research into Galileo's unpublished working papers from as early as 1604 clearly showed that he had performed earlier experiments demonstrating the time-squared law (Drake, 1973; Wisan, 1984).  These early results, however, disagreed with Galileo's theoretical expectations and he never published them (Naylor, 1990).  His later published account describes a different form of the inclined plane experiment.The noted author Arthur Koestler, in his book 'The Sleepwalkers', argued that Galileo was grossly unscientific and dishonest in his methods, and rarely gave credit where due. Others argue that it is unfair to hold him to modern "scientific standards" (mathematical theory supported by evidential trial) with which he himself was only beginning to experiment."
Koyre's criticism of Galileo has been discredited by later research, so it is just clutter to include it here. As for Koestler, he is no specialist on Galileo, and like thousands of others has a particular opinion. I see no reason why his opinion should be included unless it brings out some new fact. NN 20:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Material

message: Someone keeps inserting "who had already executed Giordano Bruno by burning at the stake for defending a sun-centered world model and other heresies" or something similar. This is misleading. If you follow the link to Giordano Bruno, you'll find that Bruno was executed for other reasons. Please remove this phrase. Roger 23:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  The precise nature of the indictment is admittedly slightly obscure: we do know that Bellarmine drew up a list of eight objectionable propositions, but what we do not have is a completely authoritative record of precisely what these might have been. J. Lewis MacIntyre has suggested that they bore on "(1) the distinction of persons in God; (2) the Incarnation of the Word; (3) the nature of the Holy Spirit; (4) the Divinity of Christ; (5, 6, 7) the necessity, eternity, and infinity of Nature; (8) the Transmigration of Souls." (Giordano Bruno: Mystic Martyr, 90). Frances Yates (a more up to date and more authoritative source) suggests that they touched "on God's infinity implying an infinite universe, on the mode of creation of the human soul, on the motion of the earth, on the stars being angels, on the earth as animated by a sensitive and rational soul, on there being many worlds", but she continues to argue "the legend that Bruno was prosecuted as a philosophical thinker, was burned for his daring views on innumerable worlds or on the movement of the earth, can no longer stand". (Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 354–55). These are just a couple of books I happen to have readily to hand -- numerous others will say similar things. If Bruno's heliocentrism played any role at all in his condemnation, it was only a very minor role. In addition, although Bellarmine had been involved in Bruno's prosecution, it's also a gross misrepresentation to say that he "had already executed" Bruno, as though he'd been solely responsible for it. Hce1132 23:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the citation; I didn't have time to run down my copy of Yates.  I've removed the passage about Bruno.  SteveMcCluskey 00:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Someone is me.  But I don't keep inserting it; the first time it only had "for defending a sun-centered world model", and the second time I thought it would be more acceptable with "and other heresies".  If we can't specifically show that the sun-centered world view was part of the heresy that he was burned for, it is still worthwhile mentioning that this Bellarmine guy was the same who had, not long before, burned at the stake a heretic who was known for espousing heliocentrism, since Galileo was well aware of that history.  It clarifies who we are dealing with.  So, I'll try again, not asserting the contested point. Dicklyon 04:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your new version says, "Cardinal Bellarmine (who had recently had Giordano Bruno, another recent proponent of a sun-centered world view, burned at the stake for heresy[4]),". It is still misleading. It suggests Bruno was sole responsible for burning Bruno, that a sun-centered world view was already found to be a heresy, and that the sun-centered world view had something to do with Bruno's punishment. Maybe you could just say "who also presided over the trial of Giordano Bruno", and let the reader look that up if he wishes. It is a very minor point. Roger 15:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why you think it is misleading.  Did you read the reference?  All of what you inferred there is pretty strongly supported by the historical record.  The only thing uncertain is whether holding to heliocentrism was included in the specific heresy charges of which he was convicted. Dicklyon 18:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bruno

message: did galileo galilei get married or have any kids —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.146.238.162 (talk) 15:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  galileo galilei 

message: Did Galileo Galilei ever get married and have any kids? Was dat da only thing he was famous for is what was said did he ever do anythjing else with his life besides sience math and physics?Is there any thing that may not have been discovered or may not have been heared of yet maybe he had something put up or hid away that noone else new of is that maybe possible? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.146.238.162 (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  galileo galilei 

message: A possible addition to the section on Galileo in popular culture: the song Galileo Galilei by the band Artichoke (which was played at the grand reopening of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles). Velvet Moth 07:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It could become a humongous list if every single reference to Galileo in popular culture were added.  It is preferable to keep only very well-known references. Icemuon 09:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Galileo in popular culture 

message: At least one of Galileo's writings seems to be missing. He wrote Bodies That Stay Atop Water or Move Within I. It was published in Florence in 1612. This information comes from Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter.
From the same source, I gather that he wrote a speech called Discourse on the Comets that was delivered by Mario Guiducci in 1619. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FlanaganT (talk • contribs) 13:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Books 

message: The article currently states:
:He was formally rehabilitated in 1741, when Pope Benedict XIV authorized the publication of Galileo's complete scientific works (a censored edition had been published in 1718), and in 1758 the general prohibition against heliocentrism was removed from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. 
However, the source referenced implies that he wasn't recommended for formal rehabilitation until 1979 and it wasn't actually done until 1992: .
So, is a correction in order ? StuRat 21:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Formal rehabilitation" date 

message: Some people believe that Galileo was the first of not six, but seven children. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.147.17.33 (talk) 19:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seven Children? 

message: Galelio is now not ofishulee a hearatick, JP III igzoniradid him.
--Alex331 00:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Galileo isn't a heratic 

message: Definitively there are problems concerning Galileo as well.
First was not Italian, because Italy did not exist, and then
more problems concerning Italian Culture on Wikipedia
PLEASE SEE THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE:  http://www.youtube.com/modernitaly
Wikipedia Complaint
Regards
Luca Benattiluca 13:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why point people to youtube?  As for "Italy did not exist", the republic of italy did not, but the term "Italy" has been around since ancient times.  Consider for example Livy's standard phrase "Dum haec in Italia geruntur..." Paul Koning 15:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  PROBLEMS CONCERNING ITALIAN CULTURE 

message: James M. Lattis has written an excellent book on Galileo and the controversy with Clavius, entitled "Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christopher Clavius and the collapse of ptolemaic cosmology".
I would like to add a reference to this and to consider putting in some material relating to Clavius who was Galileo's chief interlocutor and the standard source for astronomy before Galileo's time - how do other editors feel about this?
Alan XAX Freeman 23:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lattis book on Clavius and Galileo 

message: Should there be external links to Youtube clips of what appears to be copyrighted material?  It doesn't seem be appropriate given that Wikipedia tries to be very careful about honoring copyright. Paul Koning 15:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Youtube link to copyrighted material 

message: hi! i think this picture http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagem:Galileos_tomb.jpg is a better choiche for Galileo's tomb. if you wish take it. regards.Tetraktys-English 02:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Picture 

message: I brought up the same question when Bernini and Michaelangelo were assigned to this category.CARAVAGGISTI 23:00, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Can someone explain the logic of Category:Italian Roman Catholic