OUTSTANDING FIGURES IN HISTORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19347, 30 June 1925, Page 7

OUTSTANDING FIGURES IN HISTORY

GALILEO. W.E.A. LECTURE. There was a large attendance at the weekly W.E.A. (University Extension) lecture, on Thursday evening, the subject of which, on this occasion, was Galileo. Mr A. Ernest Mander (the lecturer) began by describing the conditions of the age in which Galileo lived. He was born at Pisa, one of the Italian city-states, at the time when Queen Elizabeth had just begun to reign in England. The fury of the storm produced by the Reformation had somewhat abated. The exploitation of the New World was going on apace; and the wealth of Europe was increasing very rapidly. In the realm of thought, the New Learning (the revival of the classics) ha<l broken through the ignorance, superstition and bigotry of the long dark middle ages. And, following upon this New Learning (which was really a revival of the old learning of the ancient Greeks), some men in Europe were now beginning to grope their way towards truly “new” knowledge and a new conception of the universe. THE TORCH OF SCIENCE. Roger Bacon had been groping towards the light in an English monastery as far back as the year J 250. Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian, was thinking about the subject-matter of science in 1500, just before the Reformation. Then the search for new knowledge had been taken up by Copernicus in Poland —Copernicus who had been watching the planets and thinking about their movement during the period of the Reformation. i'hen came Tycho Brache, a Dane, ebserving and accumulating more facts for the science of astronomy. Bruno, pn Italian followed him; and William Gilbert, an Englishman, was doing other valuable scientific work. Meanwhile Francis Bacon in Eng land was expounding the methods of scientific reasoning, insisting upon need for experiment, and emphasising the great principle that nothing must be taken for granted—that all our beliefs must be built up by scientific induction from observed and tested facts. Kepler, a German, was at the same time engaged in Avorking out the “mathematics of the universe’’—working out the formulas, discovering the laws, according to which the earth and the other planets spin on their axis and swing around the sun. A contemporary of Bacon and Kepler was the Italian Galileo. He was born in 1564; he died in 1642; and in ! the year that Galileo died Isaac Newton was born. And so, from man to man, from generation to generation, the Torch of Science, now burning so brightly, was handed on and on, GALILEO ’S CAREER,

Galileo belonged to an old but impoverished- Florentine family. At first he intended to study medicine, but soon became interested in mathematics and mechanics.

The lecturer gave an account of Galileo’s life, first as student and then as lecturer, at the University of Pisa. One of his early discoveries was the j principle of the pendulum, which prepared the way for the pendulum-clock. Mr Mander then gave a short sketch of Galileo’s character and his- manner of conducting arguments. He was eager, earnest and enthusiastic—a challenging personality. When engaged in argument he was forceful and positive, covering his opponents with ridicule, using to the full the gift of stinging sarcasm, demolishing their objections with devastating logic and, in his victories, displaying such exultant glee. Perhaps no other type of personality could have focussed attention as he did upon the new ideas, or made such a smashing onslaught upon the old unscientific beliefs regarding the earth and the universe. He was just the man for the work he had to do. THE CULT OF ARISTOTLE. The University of Pisa at this time (said the lecturer) was completely i dominated by the works of Aristotle. I Aristotle was, of course, a very great thinker in his day, one of the master minds that were the glory of old Athens. But, with the coming of the New Learning in Europe, and the end of the middle ages, Aristotle had been adopted as an infallible teacher. He was accepted as the final authority on all scientific questions. Instead of his being regarded as a splendid pioneer in science, whose work must be followed up, improved and extended —instead of this, his works were accepted as a sort of Bible—as though he had spoken the last word for ever. As Oliver Lodge puts it: In any dispute on a question of. fact, the method of the schoolmen was not to make an experiment. Instead, they turned over the pages of Aristotle; and he who could quote chapter and verse from this authority was held to have finally settled the question. It was this kind of thinking —or this substitute for thinking—that Francis Bacon in England was striving to expose and overcome. And it was this kind of argument that met Galileo when he discovered new truths by observation and experiment. THE TWO BALLS. An example of this clash between the old unscientific and the new scientific methods occurs in connection with Galileo’s discovery regarding falling bodies. He finds that bodies fall to the earth at the same speed, irrespective !of their weight. The only differences are due to size and shape, which affect the amount of resistance offered by the air. But, says, Galileo, if you take two bodies of the same size and shape, and one is a hundred times as heavy as the other, then they will both fall to the ground at exactly the same rate. Of course, every schoolboy knows that nowadays. But Aristotle had assumed the principle that heavy bodies fall faster than light ones. It was just another case of a general principle “taken for granted” instead of being arrived at —and thoroughly tested —by scientific methods. So Galileo finds that Aristotle was wrong in his assumption. But the scholars in the Church, and the professors of philosophy in the Uiversities, simply will not listen to him.

ARGUMENT AND EXPERIMENT. “It is so,” says Galileo: “The rate at which bodies fall to the earth does

notJgepend at all upon their weight.” “ffiut that can’t be so,” reply his opponents “Aristotle says otherwise.” i N “Try it and see,” says Galileo. “No; there’s no need to try it,” say the priests and professors: “Look, we can show you what Aristotle says.” Then one tine day, the .university and half the town being assembled. Galileo goes up to the Leaning’ at Pisa. He has two metal balls, one weighing a hundred pounds, the other only one pound. Together he. pushes them over the edge . . . and together they fall crashing to the ground! An eye-witness tells us that the learned doctors, the professors and the priests are dumbfounded. They look and look, unable to believe their eyes. Then, without a word, they turn and waddle off home. AT PADUA. But they never forgive Galileo. Before very long they have made things too unpleasant for him to remain at Pisa. However, he is offered by the Senate of Venice a professorship at Padua; and thither in 1591 he goes. At Padua Galileo becomes famous. He gives lectures both to his students and to the public. He writes numerous scientific works on the structure of the universe, on motion, sound, light, and heat. He invents the thermometer; and then, having heard of a Dutch spectacle maker who has invented an instrument for making distant objects appear larger than when seen with the naked eye, he sets to work independently and invents the telescope. His first telescope magnifies only three times. Then he makes one to magnify eight times; and then thirty times. It is a triumph—a red-letter day in human history—a far more important date to remember than the date of almost any battle. Bor in 1609, with the invention of the telescope (and the microscope, which comes at the same time), the bounds of “ what-man-can-get-to-know” are indefinitely extended. THE TELESCOPE. Galileo has made his telescope. He takes it to show to the Senate of Venice. The picture is vividly presented in “The Torch Bearers,” by Alfred Noyes: He made his telescope; And. oh, how vividly the scene comes back, When, in their gorgeous robes, the Senate stood Beside him on that high Venetian tower, Scanning the blue sea that showed no speck of sail. Then, one by one, ho bade them look; And one by one they cried: “A miracle! Brown sails and red, a fleet of fishing ships!’’ Then—quickly looking up as though to catch The vision ere it tricked them—all they saw Was empty sea again. Many helievtd That all was trickery; but* he bade them note The colours of the sails, and count the boats. Then in a little while, the naked eye Saw on the sky-line certain specks that grew, Took form and colour; and within an hour The fishing fleet comes foaming into port . . . V hcreat old senators, wagging white beards And. fumbling at gold chains with shrunken hands (Too feeble for the sword hilt), squeaked at once: “This glass will give us great advantages In times of war . . .” War! War! O, God of Love! Even amidst their wonders at Thy world— Dazed with new beabty, gifted with new bowers — These old men, dream of war!”

THE REVELATION. Galileo presents that telescope to the Senate and makes another for him self. Then he turna it upward t to the heavens. First he looks at the moon —see* what no mortal eye has ever seen be. fore. Then he looks at the planets, ‘d’.scovers the moons of Jupiter and msny-other things. AH his observations boar out the Copernican system by which the sun is made the centre aiound which the, planets (including the earth) revolve. “A. century before the time of Galileo,” said Mr Mander, 1 ‘Europe had had its eyes opened to the larger, outer world beyond the Atlantic Ocean, around South Africa and into the Indian Ocean, and far away in the vast, mysterious Pacific. - All these discoveries had staggered men’s imagination as they realised the vastness of the world. ...” But now they look up and discover a Boundless Universe, in which the earth itself is only an insignificant speck, It is an amazing, a staggering revelation—a revelation that must produce a revolution in all men’s ideas about everything. IHE EARTH AND THE UNIVERSE. Hitherto the earth has been regarded as the all-important thing in the universe—the “one big thing”—with sun, planets, and stars all circling aiound it. The sun, the moon, the stars: These were only lanterns provided to light up this all-important earth. The Creator gave nearly alibis attention to the creation of this world of ours; and then, as a sort of finishing touch, “He made the stars also.” But now Galileo and the rest discover that the earth itself is only a very small and insignificant item in the constitution of the universe. Instead of being the “one big thing,” the earth is found in fact to be only one of a handful of planets spinning in space around one of the smallest of a million—or a thousand million—suns. Man —who has imagined himself to be the “Pride of all Creation” —is thus brought face to face with the fact of his own insignificance. The very stage upon which he strutted so proudly now turns out to be only an infinitesimal speck in an infinite universe —Poor little man! What a blow to his sense of self-importance! THE CENSORSHIP. Mr Mander then briefly told the story of the burning of Bruno at Rome —mainly for teaching these new ideas. He then gave an account of Galileo’s own difficulties, firstly with the Aristotelian professors, and secondly with the Church. At length—when Galileo was 70 —he published a book setting forth the results of his life’s research and reasoning regarding the nature of the universe, and exposing the Copcrnician theory. At once 'it was placed on the list of booKs that Roman Catholics tire forbidden to read. Galileo himself was taken to Rome and subjected to “rigorous examination” by the Inquisition. Whether or not he was actually subjected to torture, we do nor. know. There is conflicting evidence. All we know is that a ghastly, shaken old man, thoroughly broken in spirit, finally emerged from the “examination” and signed a recantation. Mr Mander quoted this confession and recantation, describing the circumstances, and then going on to deal wild the effects of Galileo’s work upon the n?nd of Europe. Seven years after his ordeal by inqi isition, at the age of 78, the old man died, his life having ended in apparent failure. But, as so often happens, the hated and persecuted heresy of one generation became for the next an obvious commonplace, and so was gradually woven into the very texture of the thought of mankind at large.