Galileo Galilei 1564-1642

Einstein and Hawking regard Galileo as “The Father of Modern Science.” He realized that you could only count on the accuracy of quantitative facts; so he built something that would show him the numbers. He was the first mad scientists to intentionally conceive, design, build and employ an elaborate experimental apparatus for the purpose of having the apparatus show him the truth about the laws of nature. By carefully timing balls rolling down a ramp, Galileo learned that a body falls with a constant uniform acceleration, regardless of its weight, so that its speed in a vacuum must be proportional to the square of the elapsed time.

Galileo was the first human to carefully time a natural phenomenon! Ever since the examples of Galileo and Tycho Brahe, scientists have scrupulously sought accurate, and precise data.

We know that good reasoning is careful reasoning and scientific method is very careful reasoning. Galilelo's achievment from his new desire for very accurate and scrupulously recorded data (which happened to lead to a positive conclusion only after mathematical analysis) is a significant advance in the history of Human reasoning and Human understanding. Since Galilelo educated men have scrupulously record data and many discoveries have been made -- and many other ideas ruled out!

The Age of Enlightenment resulted from the examples of individuals discovering powerful new truths without ‘Divine Enlightenment.’ This was contrary to the establishment's propaganda; and it is still contrary to religious prejudice. MoreContemporary Religious Prejudice Exposed

“Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured.”

“Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.”

“[V]ery great is the number of the stupid”

“I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves: Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church,”

“This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything.”

“It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.”

“If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more splendid than the moon.”

“In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.”

“Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze...”

“If what we are discussing were a point of law or of the humanities, in which neither true nor false exists, one might trust in subtlety of mind and readiness of tongue and in the greater experience of the writers, and expect him who excelled in those things to make his reasoning most plausible, and one might judge it to be the best. But in the natural sciences, whose conclusions are true and necessary and have nothing to do with human will, one must take care not to place oneself in the defense of error; for here a thousand Demostheneses and a thousand Aristotles would be left in the lurch by every mediocre wit who happened to hit upon the truth for himself. Therefore, Simplicio, give up this idea and this hope of yours that there may be men so much more learned, erudite, and well-read than the rest of us as to be able to make that which is false become true in defiance of nature.”

“In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.”

“The passage of time has revealed to everyone the truths that I previously set forth; and, together with the truth of the facts, there has come to light the great difference in attitude between those who simply and dispassionately refused to admit the discoveries to be true, and those who combined with their incredulity some reckless passion of their own.”

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

“Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before our own age.”