Galileo: Decisive Innovator

by Michael Sharratt, David Knight (Preface by)

Overview

In this entertaining and authoritative biography, first published in 1994, Michael Sharratt examines the flair, imagination, hard-headedness, clarity, combativeness and penetrating intelligence of Galileo Galilei. To follow Galileo's career as he exploited unforeseen opportunities to unseat established ways of comprehending nature is to understand a crucial stage of the Scientific Revolution. Galileo was a pathbreaker for the newly-invented telescope, the decoder of nature's mathematical language and a quite brilliant popularizer of science. Even his reluctant excursion into theology has at last been officially and handsomely recognized by the Church's "rehabilitation" of the Inquisition's most famous victim, fully discussed in the last chapter. This book makes his lasting contributions accessible to nonscientists and his mistakes are not overlooked. This is not a mythical story, but the biography of an innovator--one of the greatest ever known.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521566711
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/11/1996
Series:	Cambridge Science Biographies
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; General editor's preface; Acknowledgements; 1. The strangest piece of news; 2. Early life; 3. Professor at Pisa; 4. The proper home for his ability; 5. Discoveries and controversies; 6. The condemnation of Copernicanism; 7. Controversy and new hope; 8. The Dialogue and Galileo's condemnation; 9. Two new sciences; 10. Rehabilitation; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...several details in this biography make our understanding of Galileo's world easier." Seventeenth-Century News

"Most readers will read the last chapter of this outstanding biography on Galileo first. Laying out the contemporary Church's attempt to bring together the two cultures of science and religion into a harmonious relationship of mutual respect, the chapter provides the satisfying closure to the infamous Galilo affair that no other book in the previous three and a half centuries has been able to do." James R. Hansen, Science Books & Films

"Building from a thorough familiarity with the volumes of scholarship on the subject, the author offers an extremely readable reappraisal of Galileo's life and work. Sharratt's book is an excellent addition to the Cambridge Science Biographies series." James R. Hansen, Science Books & Films

"From now on, when I assign a single book on Galileo to undergraduate students, it will be this one." James R. Hansen, Science Books & Films

"In Galileo: Decisive Innovator, Michael Sharratt offers an effective and manageable remedy to the standard schoolbook portrayal of Galileo. Effective, because it outlines Galileo's contributions with an emphasis on ideas rather than anecdotes. Manageable, because it is a succinct account that restricts itself to the salient features of Galileo's arguments and the key events and relationships that shaped his life...Sharratt succeeds in restoring the man behind the myth." The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

From the Publisher

Galileo was a path-breaker for the newly invented telescope, the decoder of nature's mathematical language, and a brilliant popularizer of science. Beginning with Galileo's early life through his "rehabilitation" by the church, the author shows the great scientist's zest for living, gregariousness, and creativity, without glossing over his impulsiveness, vulnerability, or, at times, unfairness. Illustrated in black and white. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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