HOW TO DISCOVER YOUR GALILEO MOMENT

摘要

From my earliest age, I admired Galileo's courage in standing up to a widespread belief and defending what he knew to be true based on data and his own observations. Galileo had built a powerful telescope, and when he observed the stars, he saw that Earth was not the center of the solar system. It was a dangerous observation. Plato had written about a geocentric universe. Ptolemy argued for geocentrism. The pope endorsed the view, scholars took it for granted, and everyday people unquestioningly accepted the work of experts. When Copernicus had hypothesized a heliocentric universe-placing the sun at its center-his views resulted in harsh consequences. But Galileo's data-the actual stars he observed through his telescope-contradicted a widespread belief.