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Albert Einstein
Astronomer Galileo had backed Nicholas Copernicus’s idea that the sun was at the center of the universe and that the planets, including the earth, all orbited it. This contradicted the Catholic Church’s traditional teaching that the earth was at the center of everything and everything orbited it, which did not go down well. In 1609, Galileo used the newly invented telescope and demonstrated that moons orbited Jupiter, thus proving the earth wasn’t at the center of everything. He also showed that all objects fall at the same speed, regardless of their weight. He rolled differently sized balls down a slope and measured their acceleration. It was the first time anyone had thought to actually test this. Sir Isaac Newton used Galileo’s measurements in his own work. Stephen Hawking said he feels connected to Galileo, as he was born 300 years to the day after the astronomer’s death.
Galileo Galilei Quotes in A Brief History of Time
The A Brief History of Time quotes below are all either spoken by Galileo Galilei or refer to Galileo Galilei. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
The Aristotelian tradition also held that one could work out all the laws that govern the universe by pure thought: it was not necessary to check by observation. So no one until Galileo bothered to see whether bodies of different weight did in fact fall at different speeds.
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Chapter 8
Quotes
The Catholic Church had made a bad mistake with Galileo when it tried to lay down the law on a question of science, declaring that the sun went round the earth. Now, centuries later, it had decided to invite a number of experts to advise it on cosmology.
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Galileo Galilei Quotes in A Brief History of Time
The A Brief History of Time quotes below are all either spoken by Galileo Galilei or refer to Galileo Galilei. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
The Aristotelian tradition also held that one could work out all the laws that govern the universe by pure thought: it was not necessary to check by observation. So no one until Galileo bothered to see whether bodies of different weight did in fact fall at different speeds.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8
Quotes
The Catholic Church had made a bad mistake with Galileo when it tried to lay down the law on a question of science, declaring that the sun went round the earth. Now, centuries later, it had decided to invite a number of experts to advise it on cosmology.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
