Galileo: Starry Messenger

The Starry Messenger was written by Galileo Galilei in 1610. It details the discoveries made by Galileo with the aid of his newly invented "spyglass". Galileo began working on the spyglass after hearing rumours of an invention by Hans Lipperhey that could make things appear up to three times larger. Galileo quickly discovered that with a lead tube, on concave lens, and one convex lens, he could magnify objects viewed through his device 1000 times. His intent was at first very practical. The device could be used for navigation on ships and to keep watch for enemies. Then Galilei turned his invention on the sky. Instantly millions of stars appeared that had never before been visible, and in great detail. Galileo's study of the skies led to four main discoveries-four moons orbiting Jupiter, several unknown stars, features of the Moon's surface, and a change in classification for several Nebulai.

Knowing the fate of Copernicus before him made it necessary for Galileo to gain favor with the nobility as quickly as possible. His most important discoveries, four moons orbiting Jupiter, were to be named the Medician stars in honor of Cosmo 11 de Medici, the fourth Grand Duke of Tuscany. This would immortalize Medici as no other gift could, for "all human monuments ultimately perish through the violence of the elements or by old age." Through the stars Medici would be remembered for centuries.

Galileo viewed the moon in mere detail than any man had before. He observed, contrary to the popular Christian belief, that the moon's surface was irregular. Galileo also mentions a large cavity on the surface, which he speculated correctly had held water. This also was a dangerous statement, for comparing the moon to the earth in any respect was considered heretical. He explains that the moon looks smooth because of the reflection of light off the sun, and that also explains how the moon appears to give off a faint glow.

By studying constellation Galileo discovered several uncharted stars. He found new stars in the Pleiades and Orion constellations. The nature and material of the Milky Way were also clarified by Galileo, and several masses previously called Nebuli were discovered instead to be group of individual stars.

Galileo's claim that the "Medician Stars" orbit "the center of the universe, that is, the sun", created the necessity for a defense of his beliefs. Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina refutes biblically-based arguments commonly used against him. Galileo believed these arguments to be false and illogical. His is a modern view of science-"Nature...is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whetherhe abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men." These criticisms were taken very seriously by Galileo. He believed that his enemies-namely Duchess Christina, Father Lorini, and Lodovico delle Colombe, a philosopher, were "persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and anything mine by any means they can think of." Although he claimed he did "not desire in these matters to engage in dispute with anyone," he had to fight their method of judgement-"condemning it without understanding it, weighing it, or so much as reading it."

One of the church's main arguments against Galileo's theory of the earth orbiting the sun was quickly pointed out to be completely illogical. Whether on believed that the sun revolved around the earth or, as the church did, in a primum mobile (a giant sphere surrounding the earth that contained all of the heavenly bodies and caused seasonal and daily changes by spinning around the earth, common sense proves that if the sun stopped, the earth would continue rotating and therefore the day would be shorter.

Current scientific method and logic were defined by Galileo's works. His techniques revolutionized the thought processes of not only mathematicians and scientists, but common man as well. Factual information became the bases of arguments rather than biblical interpretation. Although Galileo's discoveries are now elementary school level science, his work is still relevant in the role it played in freeing the human mind.