Galileo Studies: Personality, Tradition and Revolution - Hardcover

"An interesting and stimulating introduction to the life and works of Galileo by the doyen of Galilean studies. The author studies the interplay of mathematical reasoning and physical experimentation in the genesis of the law of free fall and in the employment of Galileo's methodology."--Mathematical Reviews "An interesting and stimulating introduction to the life and works of Galileo by the doyen of Galilean studies. The author studies the interplay of mathematical reasoning and physical experimentation in the genesis of the law of free fall and in the employment of Galileo's methodology."--Mathematical Reviews "An interesting and stimulating introduction to the life and works of Galileo by the doyen of Galilean studies. The author studies the interplay of mathematical reasoning and physical experimentation in the genesis of the law of free fall and in the employment of Galileo's methodology."--Mathematical Reviews "An interesting and stimulating introduction to the life and works of Galileo by the doyen of Galilean studies. The author studies the interplay of mathematical reasoning and physical experimentation in the genesis of the law of free fall and in the employment of Galileo's methodology."--Mathematical Reviews

In a startling reinterpretation of the evidence, Stillman Drake advances the hypothesis that Galileo's condemnation by the Inquisition was caused not by his defiance of the Church, but by the hostility of contemporary philosophers. Galileo's own beautifully lucid arguments are used to show how his scientific method--based on a search not for causes but for laws--was utterly divorced from the Aristotelian approach to physics. His methodology had a definitive impact on the development of modern physics, and led to a final parting of the ways between science and philosophy.