Was Galileo really a martyr (put on house arrest anyway) for writing about heliocentrism?
Here’s the familiar story:
“On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church.” – History.com
In 1542, Copernicus, a Catholic cleric (who got his ideas from Ptolemy), dedicated his book about heliocentrism to the Pope and it was widely accepted in the church. Yet in 1616, we’ve got this story about Galileo being put on trial for the theory. Convoluting the matter further, the Vatican “officially accepted Galileo’s theory”350 years later on October 31, 1992. (AP)
The whole thing just doesn’t make sense. One theory that Will (The Truth is Stranger Than Fiction) talks about this in his video suggests that the trial was more likely about Galileo insulted the Pope by insinuating that he was a dummy “Simplicio.” I’ll let the video take it from there…
