Ok now that all of the partying has stopped from the 400th anniversary party…

(See 400th Anniversary of Galileo’s telescope-Part 1)

The Stars

 About a year later (1610) Galileo published his work, Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), which verified that the earth does in fact, revolve around the sun, a theory that Nicolaus Copernicus had speculated about 120 years before, but couldn’t fully prove.  This theory is called the Heliocentric theory-“how the planets revolve around the sun” vs. the predominant theory of the time called the Geocentric theory-“how the planets and sun revolve around the earth”. His theory was so crazy it landed Galileo in house arrest for the last 8 years of his life, ordered by the Pope himself. Back then the geocentric theory was so engrained that going against it was heresy.

So it makes me wonder (along with the “How do you really know it was Aug 25th“ thing see part 1), if you lived before Galileo’s time and we had this conversation:

You:             “So what do you do for a living?”
Me:            “I’m an astronomer”
You:            “Ok. [pause]. So what do you do?
Me:            “Oh. I study how the planets revolve around the earth”
You:             “Oh, ok”

If you think about it this is profound. Before Galileo’s ideas became accepted the definition of what an astronomer did completely precluded him from ever getting the right answer because the planets don’t revolve around the earth. They, of course, revolve around the sun.

 So back to my wondering… how many things in our life fall under a similar assumption, that precludes us from ever getting the right answer, because we think the planets revolve around us.

Just wondering… 

 Photo courtesy of PhotoExpress.com

© 2009, The Geek. All rights reserved. Click here for the Disclosure Statement