Would you deny an idea you know is true because you will die if you do not? Probably or even most certainly. It is the year 1633 and the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei is fighting for his life because he expressed ideas that were ahead of the time. We can now look at the reasons why this happened.
The belief before 1500
The Christian church held the view that the Earth was so special that God had placed it in the centre of the universe. This might have been the idea because of a misinterpretation of an unknown Bible text. Furthermore, few people questioned the church ideas and scientific ideas were only correct if it was in line with that of the Christian believers.
The Medieval View
The medieval view was based on what you could see and from that viewpoint; the Earth was indeed the centre of the universe and surely that of the solar system. After all the Sun appeared to circle the Earth daily.
Aristotle
This Greek philosopher supported the idea of an Earth centred Universe and Ptolemy expanded the theory.
The Scientific Revolution
During this time a few people started to challenge old ideas. They based their ideas on observing the natural world. They also made new theories based on experimentation. The Polish astronomer Copernicus led the way He knew his ideas would not be accepted and did not publish this until 1543, the last year of his life.
Brahe and Kepler
Brahe only observed the planets and recorded their movements while Kepler started doing the mathematical work to figure out what exactly governed the planetary motion. Kepler showed that Copernicus was correct. The Planets revolved around the sun.
Galileo
In 1581 the seventeen year old Galileo started to challenge the work of Aristotle and managed to prove that they were wrong. As early as 1616 the church warned Galileo not to defend the ideas of Copernicus. Then in 1633 Galileo stood before the court and under pressure had to declare the ideas of Copernicus was false.
Galileo was in a predicament He had the guts to say something, which he knows, is true. Unfortunately, this idea is in direct opposition to a most important fundamental principle on which the Church had built its reputation. The Roman Catholic Church was so strong that it had its own court, the Roman Inquisition.
Summary
The study of Astronomy has opened the world for us and pointed out that many of the things we believed in were false. Still our ideas were channelled by the church of the time and if you questioned that belief you were in for a lot of trouble. The bright mind of Galileo was silenced and he had to declare that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. Today we know Galileo was correct and the church was wrong. Sadly, Galileo died in 1642 while under house arrest.
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