Case Study III: Science — Galileo and Critical Perspective Shifting

Abstract

Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in February 1632, is one of the great books of world history. Its topic is a discussion of the relative merits of two views of the universe — the Earth-centred Aristotelian/Ptolemaic position, and the Sun-centred Copernican view. This book played a part in convincing people that the Earth moves, and in unseating the physics of Aristotle. Although perhaps not as influential to later astronomy as Kepler’s Astronomia Nova of 1609,¹ it influenced the physics of both Newton and Einstein and became a symbol of scientific free thinking. It was also the book that caused Galileo to be condemned and placed under house arrest by the Catholic Church in 1633.