Galileo's lost letter

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Galileo famously insisted in the early 17th Century that the Earth goes round the Sun and not vice versa – an idea that got him into deep trouble with the Catholic Church. In 1633 Galileo was put on trial for heresy by the Inquisition, and was threatened with imprisonment, or worse, if he did not recant. Galileo spent the rest of his days under house arrest and is now seen by some as a near-martyr to science in the face of unyielding religious doctrine. But the discovery of a letter questions the received version of events. Philip Ball tells the story of the relationship between Galileo, the church and his fellow professors. Philip talks to science historians professor Paula Findlen of Stanford University and professor Mary Jane Rubenstein of Wesleyan University about Galileo's time and about the history of the relationship between science and religion. (Picture: Galileo demonstrating his telescope. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.3	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	I'm Philip Ball and today on Discovery from the BBC I'm here with another story from the history of science.
0:47.0	Today Galileo's Lost Letter.
0:51.0	In August 2018 a young historian of science made the kind of discovery
0:56.1	most researchers in his field could only dream of. Salvatore Ricciardo was a post-doctoral student at the University of Bergamo in Italy, and he was visiting the Royal Society in London to study documents handwritten by Galileo.
1:12.0	Galileo famously insisted in the early 17th century that the earth
1:16.1	goes around the sun and not vice versa, an idea that got him into deep trouble
1:21.6	with the Catholic Church. So here is Ricciardo
1:25.4	browsing through the Royal Society's online catalogue and he comes across a letter
1:29.9	apparently written by Galileo in October 1613 to his favorite protage
1:35.6	Benedetto Castelli at the University of Pisa. Now there is a famous letter
1:41.5	that Galileo sent to Castelli in December 1613 that began his
1:46.6	troubles with the church.
1:48.5	All Galileo scholars know about that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.