Is God a Mathematician_ - Mario Livio [40]
As the dark clouds were gathering on the horizon, Galileo continued to believe that reason would prevail—a huge mistake when it comes to challenging faith. Galileo published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in February of 1632 (figure 20 shows the frontispiece of the first edition). This polemical text was Galileo’s most detailed exposition of his Copernican ideas. Moreover, Galileo argued that by pursuing science using the language of mechanical equilibrium and mathematics, humans could understand the divine mind. Put differently, when a person finds a solution to a problem using proportional geometry, the insights and understanding gained are godlike. The church’s reaction was swift and decisive. The circulation of the Dialogue was forbidden as early as August of the year of its publication. In the following month, Galileo was summoned to Rome to defend himself against the charges of heresy. Galileo was brought to trial on April 12, 1633, and he was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” on June 22, 1633. The judges accused Galileo “of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world.” The sentence was harsh:
We condemn you to the formal prison of this Holy Office during our pleasure, and by way of salutary penance we enjoin that for three years to come you repeat once a week the seven penitential Psalms. Reserving to ourselves liberty to moderate, commute, or take off, in whole or in part, the aforementioned penalties and penance.
The devastated seventy-year-old Galileo could not withstand the pressure. His spirit broken, Galileo submitted his letter of abjuration, in which he committed to “abandon completely the false opinion that the Sun is at the center of the world and does not move and that the Earth is not the center of the world and moves.” He concluded:
Figure 20
Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the Holy Church, and I swear that in future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me.
Galileo’s last book, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences, was published in July 1638. The manuscript was smuggled out of Italy and was published in Leiden in Holland. The content of this book truly and powerfully expressed the sentiment embodied in the legendary words “Eppur si muove” (“And yet it moves”). That defiant phrase, commonly put in Galileo’s mouth at the end of his trial, was probably never uttered.
On October 31, 1992, the Catholic Church finally decided to “rehabilitate” Galileo. Recognizing that Galileo was right all along, but still avoiding direct criticism of the Inquisition, Pope John Paul II said:
Paradoxically, Galileo, a sincere believer, proved himself more perspicacious on this issue [apparent discrepancies between science and the scriptures] than his theologian adversaries. The majority of theologians did not perceive the formal distinction that exists between the Holy Scripture in itself and its interpretation, and this led them unduly transferring to the field of religious doctrine an issue which actually belongs to scientific research.
Newspapers around the world had a feast. The Los Angeles Times declared: “It’s Official: The Earth Revolves