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a license for its manufacture, in 1608. (It might also be worth remarking here that the famous experiment of dropping cannon balls from the Tower of Pisa was not only
not
done by Galileo but actually carried out by one of his adversaries, Giorgio Coressio, who was trying to confirm, not dispute, Aristotle’s opinion that larger bodies fall more quickly than smaller ones.) Nonetheless, to Galileo must go the entire credit for transforming the telescope from a toy into an instrument of science. And to Galileo must also go the credit of making astronomy a source of pain and confusion to the prevailing theology. His discovery of the four moons of Jupiter and the simplicity and accessibility of his writing style were key weapons in his arsenal. But more important was the directness with which he disputed the Scriptures. In his famous
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
, he usedarguments first advanced by Kepler as to why the Bible could not be interpreted literally. But he went further in saying that nothing physical that could be directly observed or which demonstrations could prove ought to be questioned merely because Biblical passages say otherwise. More clearly than Kepler had been able to do, Galileo disqualified the doctors of the church from offering opinions about nature. To allow them to do so, he charged, is pure folly. He wrote, “This would be as if an absolute despot, being neither a physician nor an architect, but knowing himself free to command, should undertake to administer medicines and erect buildings according to his whim—at grave peril of his poor patients’ lives, and the speedy collapse of his edifices.”
    From this and other audacious arguments, the doctors of the church were sent reeling. It is therefore astonishing that the church made persistent efforts to accommodate its beliefs to Galileo’s observations and claims. It was willing, for example, to accept as hypotheses that the earth moves and that the sun stands still. This, on the grounds that it is the business of mathematicians to formulate interesting hypotheses. But there could be no accommodation with Galileo’s claim that the movement of the earth is a fact of nature. Such a belief was definitively held to be injurious to holy faith by contradicting Scripture. Thus, the trial of Galileo for heresy was inevitable even though long delayed. The trial took place in 1633, resulting in Galileo’s conviction. Among the punishments were that Galileo was to abjure Copernican opinion, serve time in a formal prison, and for three years repeat once a week seven penitential psalms. There is probably no truth to the belief that Galileo mumbled at the conclusion of his sentencing, “But the earth moves” or some similar expression of defiance. He had, in fact, been asked four times at his trial if he believed in the Copernican view, and each time he said he did not. Everyone knew he believed otherwise, and that it was his advanced age, infirmities,and fear of torture that dictated his compliance. In any case, Galileo did not spend a single day in prison. He was confined at first to the grand duke’s villa at Trinità del Monte, then to the palace of Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena, and finally to his home in Florence, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died in 1642, the year Isaac Newton was born.
    Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo put in place the dynamite that would blow up the theology and metaphysics of the medieval world. Newton lit the fuse. In the ensuing explosion, Aristotle’s animism was destroyed, along with almost everything else in his
Physics
. Scripture lost much of its authority. Theology, once the Queen of the Sciences, was now reduced to the status of Court Jester. Worst of all, the meaning of existence itself became an open question. And how ironic it all was! Whereas men had traditionally looked to Heaven to find authority, purpose, and meaning, the Sleepwalkers (as Arthur Koestler called Copernicus, Kepler, and