400 Years Ago the Scientific Revolution Was Born

[Galileo]

400 Years Ago the Scientific Revolution Was Born

On March 12, 1610, Galileo Galilei published the most sensational book of all time; The Messenger from the Stars! The book described Galileo's newly invented powerful telescope. It described the sensational discovery of four new "wandering stars" going around Jupiter, the first new planets discovered since before recorded history. Galileo also announced his discoveries of mountains of the Moon (they were 5 miles tall) and "invisible" stars. He explained the Milky Way (zillions of invisible stars) and nebulous stars (invisible stars grouped close together).

The Scientific Revolution died on August 21, 2008, with the publication of the NIST report on WTC 7.

[boutons_deux]

That was still in the Dark Ages, but I guess we could consider it a step towards the Enlightenment. nutjob militant politicized "Christians" are doing their very best to drag Western civilization back to the Dark Ages.

[jacobdrj]

You have got to understand that it is a progression. Religion is an avenue for people to coalesce. You also have to realize there was a need for change during the era of the Roman Empire. There were some very questionable practices that paganism allowed that was hurtful to the average citizen. Christianity offered a structured and accepted means of improving upon the ills of Roman society. It isn't perfect, and it took a while before it could pay dividends, but ultimately, it allowed Europe to get to the point (eventually) where logic could flourish.
The crux of it was the printing press, anyways. It is what allowed everyone to get out of the Dark Age and stay there, where other civilizations had their glory periods, but tended to fade with adversity because of the effort involved in keeping knowledge stored and distributed.

[baseline bum]

The discovery of the Medicean Stars and the popularization of someone else's telescope design were far from the most important work of Galileo. His greatest contributions were (1) the law of inertia, (2) recognizing the pendulum to be periodic, thus allowing accurate measurement of time (he had previously used his pulse as a timer), and (3) his calculation of trajectories for bodies under the influence of gravity near Earth.

[DMX7]

God did it!

[Cant_Be_Faded]

lol
I like this Galileo guy.

[Galileo]

The discovery of the Medicean Stars and the popularization of someone else's telescope design were far from the most important work of Galileo. His greatest contributions were (1) the law of inertia, (2) recognizing the pendulum to be periodic, thus allowing accurate measurement of time (he had previously used his pulse as a timer), and (3) his calculation of trajectories for bodies under the influence of gravity near Earth.

good post.