The journey to discover what we now know – that the Earth is round and moves – was not an easy one.
The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, in his book, On the Heavens, in 340 B.C. wrote that the Earth is round, stationary, and the Sun, Moon and other planets moved in circular orbits around the Earth.
Aristotle was said to have concluded that the Earth is the centre of the Universe partly on religious sentiments.
The Egyptian astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy, in second century A.D. wrote, in support of Aristotle, that the Earth is at the centre of the Universe with spheres carrying the Moon, Sun, the five planets known then – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Jupiter is the biggest and Saturn, second biggest and the farthest planet in our Solar System visible to the naked eye.
Most people then, though they agreed with Aristotle that the Earth is stationary, believed that it was flat.
Some of the early thinkers sensed that the Earth is round because during an eclipse of the Moon, when the Earth’s shadow falls over the Moon and blocks out its light, it is always a round image of the Earth that is seen over the Moon.
The account of long distance travelers might also have raised their curiosity. Such travelers from the region of the North Pole, traveling far towards the South Pole, say they see the North Star as if it is just over the horizon, sort of almost touching the tip of the North Pole.
However, when they are returning towards the North Pole, the North Star looks farther away: The Earth can therefore, not be flat.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) a Polish Church cannon, was the first to write and circulate discreetly in 1514, the arguments that the Earth is round; the Sun stationary and that all the planets rotate round the Sun.
His arguments amounted to challenging the idea of geocentric cosmology that the Earth is flat and is the centre of the Universe. This is a new heliocentric cosmology.
So, out of fear, he did not disclose his discovery openly. Legend has it that Copernicus’ work was later published and the copies presented to him in his sick bed just before he died.
His book is entitled, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres).
He however, thought that the planets revolve in circular orbits round the Sun. His discovery that the Earth and other planets rotate round the Sun was a landmark achievement in astronomy.
It was not until 1609, when the Italian scientist who developed the telescope and invented the thermometer, Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), could explain this explicitly using his telescope.
He was the first to use a telescope to study the heavens.
With his improved telescope, he could see the planet Jupiter better and identified the biggest four of its 15 moons orbiting it.
He became convinced that everything does not, and must not, revolve around the Earth.
Galileo also discovered that the Moon is not smooth, but has craters and valleys because shadows on it, as the Earth appears to move, were curved and wavy, not straight lines.
Galileo also was able to describe the rings of planet Saturn, the phases of the planet Venus and sunspots.
With further observations, he became convinced that the Sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the observable Universe.
Galileo will also be remembered for his work that led to the discovery of the pendulum clock.
He found that the time it takes a pendulum to travel its arc and back to its starting point is the same regardless of the length of the arc.
But his heliocentric ideology was to the anger of the Church. It was at a time that the Protestant Reformation was spreading.
On 17 February, 1600, a scientist, Giordano Bruno, for believing that the Earth moves round the Sun and that stars are distant suns with their own planets where possibly other creatures lived, was sentenced by the Church and burnt to death in Rome.
Even at the point of death, Bruno refused to renounce his claims that the Universe is infinite without a centre and no part is more important than the other.
The charges against Bruno were not only on his belief in Cosmic Pluralism. He was also accused of being an obstinate heretic, believing in re-incarnation and refusing to believe in the Trinity, divinity of Jesus, virginity of Mary and Transubstantiation.
Some argue that his trial by a Roman Inquisition, a tribunal set-up by the Pope, was mainly on religion and not on science. There were also allegations that he was tortured with his mouth gagged with iron bars before execution, but these are not proved.
The Church was also involved in the celebrated mistrial of Joan of Arc of France who claimed to be God’s soldier; saw apparitions and heard divine voices following which she attacked and conquered Orléans from the English in 1429. This paved way for the crowning of King Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years’ War.
She was captured in the siege of Compiègne on 23 May, 1430; tried in Rouen, Normandy; found guilty of heresy and was burnt to death on 30 May,1431.
The verdict of that trial chaired by the Bishop of Beauvias, Bishop Pierre Cauchon, was reversed in 1456, clearing Joan of Arc of any wrongdoing. She was beatified Saint of the Church in 1920.
Punishment by death of this sort was a carry-over of an ancient practice which was started before the Church.
Socrates was sentenced to death and made to drink hemlock in 399 B.C. for making a weaker argument defeat the stronger one and thereby, corrupting the youth.
Plato had to run to escape a similar situation. And there was Galileo openly teaching the Copernican theory soon after Giordano Bruno.
Galileo Galilei has been controversial all his life. He dropped out, without a degree, from the University of Pisa in 1585 where he was admitted in 1581, at 16, to study medicine.
He rather privately picked interest in philosophy and mathematics and later rose to be a professor of mathematics in Pisa in 1589 and University of Padua in 1592.
He had three children by a lady, Maria Gamba, but never married her.
Two of their daughters, on his encouragement, became Catholic nuns. They never left the convent despite Galileo’s problems with the Church.
Their son studied medicine in University of Pisa; married and settled for a family life.
Galileo was believed to be the one who climbed the (leaning) Tower of Pisa (54 metres high) in Pisa, Italy, to publicly demonstrate (with metal balls of different sizes and weight) that heavier and lighter objects fall at the same rate and not the heavier one reaching the ground quicker, when they are dropped same height, same time, as was erroneously stated by Aristotle.
This was, soon after then, shown to be correct barring air resistance.
TOWER OF PISA, ITALY
The Church, not really against science, made a mistake in judgement in the case of Galileo; sentenced him and, at the threat of death, he was forced to recant.
This was in 1633, the 10th year in the 21-year papacy of Pope Urban VIII.
Galileo, even when publicly denying that the Earth moves round the Sun under coercion, was said to have murmured in a whisper: “Eppur si muove!” or “Yet, it moves.”
This was not heard and so, he was spared and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.
Under that condition, he continued his scientific investigations even after becoming blind in 1638 until he died on January 8, 1642.
There was even an unconfirmed report that at a time he had painful hernia but was not allowed to seek medical help outside.
The remains of Galileo were exhumed from a small room adjoining the chapels of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the Basilica of Santa Croce (Holy Cross) and re-buried with dignity in a tomb in that Basilica in Florence, Italy, in 1737.
The skeleton of three of the fingers from his right hand and a vertebra were removed by his admirers when the remains were exhumed.
The vertebra lies in the University of Padua where he was professor from 1592 to 1610.
The fingers, after missing for centuries, were recovered in 2009. His middle finger is on display in Museo di Storia del Scienza (Science Museum), Florence, Italy.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, on October 18,1989, launched a space probe at a cost of 1.6 billion dollars, named Galileo, in honour of the scientist.
Galileo, however, has not escaped criticism.
There are people who accuse him of being a coward by recanting instead of pertinaciously holding on to his claims, which he was sure were correct, and being burnt to death like Giordano Bruno.
However, his brilliance was never in doubt and he is widely regarded as the father of modern science.
The Church has however, since made it clear that what happened was a case of an unintentional mistake based on bad advice in a peculiar period.
The Vatican, recently under the papacy of Pope John Paul II in 1992, formally cleared Galileo, who was a practising Christian of Catholic denomination, of any wrongdoing and posthumously re-admitted him into the Church.
Pope John Paul II later openly admitted that the Church has made mistakes in the past and apologized for those mistakes.
Pope Francis in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, in July, 2015, also apologised for wrongdoings in colonial Bolivia: “Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God. I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offence of the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on 24 September, 2021 also apologised for the maltreatment of indigenous children in its residential schools from 1831 to 1996: “We acknowledge the grave abuses that were committed by some members of our Catholic community; physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and sexual.
We also sorrowfully acknowledge the historical and ongoing trauma and the legacy of suffering and challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples that continue to this day.”
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 described the action those years as “cultural genocide.”
Pope Francis in his “Pilgrimage of Penance” to Canada on 25 July, 2022, also offered his apology publicly.
The Church, thought infallible, is no longer infallible except, of course, in matters of faith.
In the case of persecuted scientists, a flat stationary Earth is not closer to God than a round rotating one.
All such matters, especially on the wrongful persecution of a few early scientists, are therefore, considered settled and closed.
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