RT> KK> Galileo had to grind the lenses for all the scopes he made, and their
RT> KK> quality was awful by modern standards.  If I'd been Galileo and 
hat's
RT> KK> what I'd had to use, we'd still be living in the Middle Ages.  
RT>OK. You win. You're crap. ;)
Nah, just intellectually lazy.  
RT> RT>>                        You might have discovered the moons orbiting
RT> RT>> Jupiter that disproved the belief at that time that everything in 
he
RT> RT>> cosmos orbited earth. Mind you there was already rough mathematical
RT> RT>> evidence that th sun was the centre of the solar system by then 
anyway
RT> RT>> if my memory serves me correctly, so you might have had a reason for
RT> RT>> looking if you were aware of it
RT> KK> IIRC, Jupiter's moons were a compelling but not conclusive argument 
for
RT> KK> the heliocentric model.
RT>Indeed, but that is not what I said. There was also the belief that 
everythin
RT>revolved around the earth. Earth was THE center of the Universe. The
RT>observation of moons orbiting Jupiter was conclusive evidence against that
RT>theory.
Right, but not completely.  It disproved the idea that absolutely
everything orbited the earth.  But it didn't disprove the idea that
the earth was at the center.  I think that what it did was shake things
loose, so to speak.
RT> KK> I think what pushed Galileo over the edge into
RT> KK> accepting Copernicus were the phases of Venus.
RT> KK> The first time you see Venus with good magnification is a real shock,
RT> KK> because you're expecting a disk, and what you typically see is a
RT> KK> distinct crescent.  IOW Venus has phases just like the moon. AFAIK 
there
RT> KK> is no way to explain this except by a model that has Venus orbiting 
the
RT> KK> sun.
RT>I wouldn't be surprised if it was a contributing factor.
RT> KK> But even in Galileo's time I think it could still be argued that
RT> KK> all the other planets orbited the sun, but the sun orbited the earth.
RT>I'm not aware of that model. The only two I know of are the one we accept 
now
RT>and the Ptolemaic/church version. Anyway, that wouldn't have been accepted 
by
RT>the church of that day either as they demanded that everything orbited 
earth.
I don't have the book handy where I read this, but Copernicus was not
completely committed to a heliocentric model.  He could assemble things
so that the other planets orbited the sun, but the sun orbited the
earth.
RT> KK> BTW, a propos PHILOSOPHY,  in Newton's time the real shocker 
hen
RT> KK> his work was published was not really the mathematical neatness of 
is
RT> KK> model, but soemthing that would never occur to us today.
RT> KK> It was "well known" in that time that affairs on earth ran according 
to
RT> KK> one set of vulgar earthly rules, but that heavenly affairs operated
RT> KK> according to ways and means that had nothing to do with mere earthly
RT> KK> ways.  This was of course a very old, essentially religious view, but 
it
RT> KK> was as basic to human thought as anything could be.  Newton showed 
that
RT> KK> the heavens -- or the planets at least -- obeyed the same "rules" as
RT> KK> earthly things.  That was as profound a paradigm shift as relativity 
or
RT> KK> QM.
RT>Indeed. That is probably why the church was so opposed to the ideas of 
people
RT>like Galileo and Copernicus. It involves a recantation by the church of 
ts
RT>beliefs and an admittance of it errantness. That just wouldn't do.
Especially because those troublemaking Protestants had them worried
as well.  I think that caused them to close ranks strongly.  The Vatican
contained a lot of highly educated people, some of whom were hep cats
who understood very well what C. and G. were proposing.  One of them
wrote a letter to a contemporary of G.'s stating in a delightfully
roundabout way that it was OK to talk about this stuff hypothetically,
but not cool to propose it as fact.
 * SLMR 2.1a *   Don't just believe in miracles -- rely on them.
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