Mankind has had had many takes and approaches to science in the past, which at the time were considered to be the absolute truth. Astronomy was perhaps one of the first sciences to develop, as the motion of celestial objects was easily traceable and deducible. Many ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle took the view that the planets and stars revolved around the Earth. This geocentric view, also known as the ptolemaic view, was well accepted by many, including religious authorities, who believed that the Universe was created for mankind and thus viewed the Earth as the center of everything. However, this view was challenged by many, including Nicolaus Copernicus, who’s work inspired Galileo Galilei. Galileo further supported Copernicus’ …show more content…
The Geocentric system had been the accepted norm for hundreds of years, and could explain most if not all the observations that Galileo had made through the telescope. Moreover, the Geocentric system supported the Church’s teleological view of the universe. The view followed that if God created the Earth and stars for humans, we must be in the center of the universe. As it generally occurs with new scientific discoveries, it was difficult for the public to reject what they have always thought to be true, especially if it clashes with their religious beliefs. By 1616, the heliocentric view started to become more popular and supporting heliocentric ideas was declared to be a heresy. The pope urged Galileo to present his work as a hypothesis rather than an indisputable fact. However, despite the warnings, Galileo chose to make his views public by publishing his book, Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems, in 1632. In his work, he portrayed the Earth-centered view through a character named Simplicio, a feebleminded individual, further mocking those who supported the Geocentric view. This infuriated the religious leaders, leading to his house arrest. It was Galileo’s constant strive to stand up for what he thought was true, and his willingness to undergo any oppression to defend his scientific view that gained him the title of the Martyr of Truth, a reference to the sentence he …show more content…
However, he was more careful about speaking about the Heliocentric system and chose to do so in a form of code language. For example, he gave the illustration that when you drop an object from the top of a sailing ship, the object would not fall on the water lagging behind the moving ship, but would rather land on the base of the ship. This was to show that Earth can still be a moving body, yet relatively seem stationary to those inhabiting it. Despite his continuous support for the Heliocentric view, Galileo shifted his focus on the idea motion to avoid further trouble during his arrest. In 1636, he published his Discourses and Mathematical Proofs Concerning Two New Sciences where he explored the concepts of motion in greater detail. The book presented the Aristotelean views of motion, and contrasted it with the “new approaches” which would eventually give rise to Newtonian mechanics. There were two main questions concerning motion that were unanswered at the time: What makes objects fall, and how can we describe falling objects. Galileo’s work focused mainly on describing motion, and he made two main statement describing how objects fall. The first claimed that if there is no resistance, all objects would fall with the same speed. The second claimed that the speed of a falling object increases proportionally with time. Galileo’s first statement was again received with