week 11 - Week 11 1 Examine Galileos letter to Grand...

Week 11
1.
Examine Galileo’s letter to Grand Duchess Christina on page 405. What views of
science and nature does he espouse in this letter? Why were his observations so
controversial??
This letter was written in 1615 and was an essay relating revelations in the Bible and
the new discoveries being made in the world. Within this letter he is stating that the sun is
the center of the universe and the earth rotates around it. Galileo’s stances on many
topics are very controversial and he goes over them in this essay. Galileo says
“They know that as to the arrangement of the parts
of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in
the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the
earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. They
know also that I support this position not only by refuting
the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing
many counter-arguments.”
In this statement he makes his most controversial claim of his life, that the earth is not the
center of the universe. He is a scientist that is not staying within the reams of the bible