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Galileo: Right On the Solar System, Wrong On Ice
carmendrahl writes "Famed astronomer Galileo Galilei is best known for taking on the Catholic Church by championing the idea that the Earth moves around the sun. But he also engaged in a debate with a philosopher about why ice floats on water. While his primary arguments were correct, he went too far, belittling legitimate, contradictory evidence given by his opponent, Ludovico delle Colombe. Galileo's erroneous arguments during the water debate are a useful reminder that the path to scientific enlightenment is not often direct and that even our intellectual heroes can sometimes be wrong."
I remember reading somewhere that another opponent, possibly the same in the blurb, had the same complaints about the heliocentric system. While he believed it to be true as well, he found Galileo's reasons as to why were erroneous, and fought over these 'wrong reasons'.
In which case, humanity is the evil scourge of the Earth and all dissent must be silenced.
Galileo Galilei was an asshole. That was the start of his problem. He partially recreated the work of Copernicus (who had no conflict with Catholicism while proving heliocentricity), but then stopped about 3/4 of the way and filled the rest with evidence-free assertions. He never did provide evidence for those assertions (which have since been found to be wrong), but he did write a 'dialogue' to defend his claims where he (accidentally?) used a nickname for the Pope of the time as the name of his ignorant questioner character.
Once the Pope thought he was being directly insulted, things went downhill fast.
Looks like the same pattern with this story about water, no surprise to anyone who actually knows a bit of history.
Why would you debate why ice floats with a philosopher? The reason is that it is less dense. There is no philosophical reason why it floats. There is also no reason to bring wood, duck or witches into the question.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Science does not fail humans. Humans fail science.
If samzenpus had bothered to read the article, he would know that it explains, very clearly, that Galileo was right on the question of why ice floats. He was apparently wrong in some of the reasoning that he used to explain another effect (a disc of ebony floating on water due to surface tension).
Maybe samzenpus should go back to posting more science fiction...
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
but they aren't wrong ALL the time, and that's the best we can do.
Ice floats because it's a witch.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The people (the literate one I mean) already knew the Earth (and the other planes) was orbiting the sun.
Just like everyone literate knew the Earth was not flat.
The problem was that Galileo was denying the faith truth with pure math, that is with his own mind.
When you use your intelligence, there is no room for the faith.
We've had dupes on here... we've had old stuff, but this is a new low. Now we're getting a summary about a debate that happened centuries ago, and then having parts of it attributed to the wrong people (Galileo != Copernicus), history as to the person's character rewritten (Galileo was a muleheaded jerk who got some stuff right, some stuff wrong, but generally said the wrong things at the wrong time, and wouldn't back down -- generally fabricated proofs for other people's well-researched conclusions that stood up under a light glance, but often failed under examination, etc.), and then completely misunderstands the article the summary is linking to.
Oh well... we all come here for the comments anyway (which usually follow all of the above failures 80% of the time).
you are answering straw men and urban legend with more urban legend and straw people. An honest biography will educate you on what Galileo accomplished and what discoveries were uniquely his.
As for heliocentric theory, what Galileo did was use observations by telescope to support Copernicous' theory. He never ever claimed the theory as his own.
nothing to see here. move along.
Paper-clips float on water, if you place them in flat and very carefully.
I just had to raid the office supplies cabinet and try it...
...Slashdot will still publish 5 stories about how Anthropocentric Global Warming is accepted scientific fact and how anyone questioning it is an evil denier...
Galileo was right about why ice floats, it is less dense than water and buoyant force comes into equilibrium with weight when a portion of ice is out of the water.
The only thing "wrong" presented in article was small matter of shape under extraordinary conditions where surface tension can dominate over lack of buoyancy.
Aristarchus of Samos in the third century BC presented a theory of heliocentrism.
Copernicus knew about Aristarchus: the first version of his manuscript ("De revolutionibus orbium coelestium") contained the lines
Source: http://www.demokritos.org/Aristarchus%20and%20Copernicus-Petrakis.htm
Note: According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philolaus Philolaus's theory also had the sun revolving around a "central fire". Aristarchus's theory was the first known heliocentric theory.
Why did science ignore Aristarchus for almost two millenia? One reason the Greeks used: "If the earth revolves around the sun, we should see parallax motion of the stars. We don't see parallax motion of the stars. Therefore, the earth doesn't revolve around the sun." But instead of improving their technology so they could see parallax motion, they spent their scientific energies devising epicycles.
Galileo argued that comets were optical illusions (they are most definitely physical objects) and that ocean tides were the result of oceans sloshing around from Earth’s rotation (tides have more to do with the moon’s gravitational pull).
Did anyone else find it strange that a page called "Chemical & Engineering News" would need to point out that comets are real and that the moon's gravity is a factor in the cause of tides?
In fact Galileo didn't invent or discover the things he is famous for, he simply marketed them..
I thought he was famous mostly for dropping things off the Leaning Tower of Pisa onto passing tourists.
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But instead of improving their technology so they could see parallax motion, they spent their scientific energies devising epicycles.
To be fair, they believed the stars to be near enough that any parallax motion would be easily and obviously visible without improved technology. When weighed against having to massively expand the size of the universe, epicycles actually were the simpler concept.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
He was ignorant of modern scientific efforts. Nowadays, we take a vote among political activists, come up with a consensus, and ridicule anyone who believes in the minority. We don't need any of that mathematical proof or experimental evidence crap. It saves a lot of time. As soon as you have a majority, you can start belittling everyone else.
We are no longer hobbled by those ancient, useless beliefs, like "the scientific method". Ours is the enlightened age!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
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Although Galileo’s explanation for why ice floats on water was closer to the truth than his opponent’s arguments, Galileo also belittled legitimate, contradictory evidence given by his opponent
So did he call him a denier, or claim he was on the payroll of the someone with questionable motives?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Although Galileo’s explanation for why ice floats on water was closer to the truth than his opponent’s arguments...
Of COURSE the almighty Galileo was right! (heh)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Ice floats on water because it's made of wooden witches, duh.
The Church took Galileo on. And it did not take Galileo on for his evidence of solarcentrism, it took him on for his style presenting his viewpoint, which made the traditional view holding party in his "dialog" (between three parties) propound ideas so they sounded idiotic and the character sounded an idiot offering them. Galileo had a good number of supporters for his scientific and mathematical methods in the Church, and his undiplomatic presentation put them into a bind, they having already spoken for him and his work. They had expected Galileo to write to convince instead of belittle.
Today, with science "on top" we have a lot of "Why should Galileo have had to be conciderate to anyone?", from a lot of assumption-educated people who have learnt nothing, and so know nothing of the history of science and the slowed struggle, slowed progress and lost chances to research, or research effectively, and even lost lives that resulted from Galileo's antagonizing presentation style hardening science's opponents' positions. Today we still have "scientific" ignoramuses doing the same thing, antagonizing by crusading, advocating Evolution through engaging in religious war with Creationists, making Evolution a religion and hardening positions in oppositions, instead of correlating them. They do so for the same reasons Galileo engaged in antagonism, that being antagonistic gives an adrenalin rush and so is energizing and so seems fun.
Is that he was an arrogant ass and often wrong. The Catholic church did not have issue with Galileo's heliocentric view, in fact, the Catholic church has a method to accept and alter their understandings of such natural actions.
The issue is that Galileo's arguments left doubt. Ironically, there were some contemporaries whose work could have aided Galileo's proof of his view. However, he has pretty much dismissed those individuals and their works as wrong. And done so extremely rudely.
The real issue of Galileo's is that he came out postulating "FACT" while by-passing the equivalent of "peer review" for the day. The pope was actually rather fond of Galileo and his work. But refused to acknowledge Galileo's theories as fact, despite his fondness. Then Galileo chose to be a bigger arse. And wrote a book publicly insulting the Pope. It's funny, as we still have this issue in science today over peer review, and early publication statements.
Do you know what the big punishment was? I've read comments deriding the church for executing Galileo. When in truth, Galileo was given a backhanded patronage. He was put on a house arrest. But pretty much had most of his means taken care of, was free to continue his work. It was essentially a public censure.
Ironically, I was unaware of most of these facts until a few years ago. When reading the 1632 series, I started to research Galileo Galilei.
"The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact."
That is not obstruction of science by the church, pope, nada. That is merely saying "Hey, before you declare something as fact, you need to be able to prove it."
Alas, the failure of science here, is to hide this blemish in the failure of history. So we go and teach how Galileo was persecuted for thinking differently. No, Galileo was in trouble for being a rude arrogant ass who couldn't back up his claims.
Galileo was not wrong about ice at all! Read TFA and you will see it plain as day, the submitted topic is absolutely wrong. Galileo stated that density is why ice floats, where the person he was debating claimed it was all shape. Galileo was more correct than the person he was debating.
Galileo was wrong with reasoning for an experiment his opponent had, and kind of wrong about the objects shape having the ability to make an object float. Surface tension was unknown at the time, and surface tension while present is not always relevant where displacement is always relevant.
If you read TFA regarding the ebony experiment, you will see what Galileo was wrong about.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Galileo was the world's first Slashdot poster!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I have posted here as a Christian, gotten some support and some flaming from internet atheists on the site, though not much because I try to be a good slashdot citizen with most of my posts having nothing to do with religion per se. So, I am surprised by the relative balance here and think that most of the posters have been too easy on the Catholic Church and the Pope -- the opposite of what I usually see. Galileo may have been an asshole in some respects and provoked the reaction against him. I don't think it is uncommon in true Geniuses of his type to behave this way. But now a days we do not try our resident Geniuses before a kangaroo court of law or inquisition and force them to plead guilty of crimes that shouldn't be crimes and that they didn't do anyway, recant under the threat of torture, burn their work and publicly condemn them in every university, then sentence them to life imprisonment. (This sentence was commuted to permanent house arrest after the trial.)
preconceptions (what his contemporaries called "reason")
What you readily dismiss as preconception was called reason by others because it is rationalism. A priori knowledge absent of empirical evidence. To dismiss it so easily is to ignore the entire works of mathematics. We all know that two of anything added to two of anything else is four. We do not need infinite evidence to prove it with reasonable (there is that root word again) certainty. Math is a noumenon manipulating process. There is no evidence that mathematical objects exist because they do not exist outside of the mind. Yet, despite having no evidence prior to the conception of the thought, only a fool would say any two objects added to any two others are not four.
You say that reason, or as you put it 'preconception', is not scientifically valid for deriving fact. Math exists and is used for scientific quantification of those very facts that you are defending, therefore I must say that there are four lights.
There's a passage in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books where Arthur decides to fall faster than his girlfriend despite what they teach you about Galileo in school. Turns out you can actually do that. I have a terminal velocity range of about 125 mph to 165 mph depending on how I orient myself, and instructors will put weights on to fall faster. The first time I heard this I was like "But... But... Galileo!" One does not tend to expect that to work with wind resistance, but it does! If you make a skydiver heavier, he'll fall faster. Of course, this trick wouldn't work on the moon. I seem to recall that one of the things the Church asked Galileo was why, if objects fell at the same speed, does a feather fall more slowly than a hammer. I also seem to recall hearing that they finally proved Galileo correct by conducting that experiment on the moon during one of the moon landings. But then, if you're skydiving on the moon you'll probably have other problems before your fall rate becomes an issue.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Being a human, it's a given that everybody will be wrong at some point of other. Listening to authority on a certain subject, you can only adjust down the probability of them being wrong. Words are, after all, just words, and the only measure is verifiable experiment.
So Occam's Razor failed.
But NEVER wrong when it comes to the theory of evolution, right? No problem though. Every scientist eventually learns the hard way that there is a God and He created all things, even the hell that most all scientist end up in.
The big planets orbit earth, with earth , mars, staying in the center "sweet spot" and all the planets together chase the suns in a corkscrew orbit.
The system of Copernicus had epicycles too. His were just less complex than Ptolemy's.
It seems like Galileo's and delle Colombe's arguments both had some elements of applicability over certain regimes.
They just were both so pigheaded that they were unwilling to accept that both of their ideas had partially captured some physics.
Less combativeness and more teamwork might have integrated the buoyancy and surface tension effects into a unified theory in their debate.
The article says that Galileo explained the floating ebony disk demonstration by claiming that it was actually floating slightly below the level of the water and you had to include the air above the disk (up to the water level) in the calculation of the disks density. If you include the whole displaced volume, the "density" of the disk plus the air above it was lighter than water and that is why it floats.
That explanation is entirely correct. The only thing missing was a physical explanation for WHY the water didn't flow over the top of the disk.
So Galileo may have been completely off base on tides, and guilty of criminal assholism (wow, snuck in a Pink Flamingos reference),
but he was essentially right on this.
Delle Colombe: ice ... more dense than water... buoyancy -- a matter of shape only
Galileo: Archimedes theory, shape of an object does not affect whether the object would sink or float
TFA: Galileo then went too far, had not accounted for surface tension
TFA went too far, in a spoken debate "ice floats because of shape" vs "density" the shape can and should be taken out of equation.
I wouldn't take up sky-diving with that attitude.
Sometimes you just got to things right the first time.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Darwin
... that people (including scientists, but especially political) get far too emotionally attached to ideas. Especially if they thought them first.
People need to realize that basically every idea they ever had or will have is wrong (if for no other reason than people are not capable of perfection, that is the realm of God alone), but it doesn't matter. We only have to be "right enough" with our ideas so that they can help us successfully predict outcomes. Just like the term "Good-enough for Government work", our ideas only need to be accurate-enough that they help us to deal successfully with the world, and are not too much of a hindrance to that end. And when they stop successfully predicting outcomes and begin to harm or hold us back, we need to be able to let those ideas go, if need be, and figure out new ones that predict better than our last idea.
Unfortunately, everyone likes to be looked upon as smart and clever, and when you put a lot of work into something you tend to be reluctant to let it go. Similarly, people like to believe that those they put their trust in to explain how the world, or certain aspects of it, works, that those people are correct. Otherwise they would be foolish for believing them. Then, of course, people get side-tracked by in-fighting, personality clashes, intellectual sparring, grudges, politics, and all sorts of other irrelevant things that are simply distractions to the real questions.
THINK! It's patriotic
I have to take issue with the article. It may make for a good Slashdot headline to say "Galileo wrong", but it's factually inaccurate. In the core of the argument, Galileo was 100% correct, and Colombe was 100% wrong.
Almost always, when trying to explain why something in the real world happens, there are multiple effects involved, and prising them apart is not always easy at first. When it comes to whether something something floats or not, that's overwhelmingly about density, not shape. Colombe's demonstration with his ebony sliver was, as the report effectively points out, actually a demonstration that there is another effect at the surface of water (surface tension) that is normally miniscule but which can become significant in extreme cases (when the mass per unit area on the surface is sufficiently low). Colombe's massive (if you'll pardon the unintended pun) error was to take one small experiment as evidence for all cases, and conclude not only that shape can have a role but that it is all that matters. Galileo, by contrast was correct in following Archimedes as the primary effect and saying that something else was going on in Colombe's demonstration. His auxiliary hypothesis may have been incorrect, but it wasn't a bad stab on the spur of the moment, and his gut feeling and faith in his understanding of the fundamentals was correct.
Seriously do people who write these things even bother to read about the subject they are writing about?
When they make statements like "championing the idea" it makes a false impression that Galileo made the discovery or that it wasn't in common knowledge at the time. Not to mention his beef with the church had less to do with his scientific views and more to do with his attempt to interpret scripture to explain what he saw through his telescope.
Discovering Saturn had "ears" yes.
Heliocentricism no.
It was an entertaining skating spectacular. Much more so than Aliens On Ice.