I'm posting this month from Italy, home-base of one of the most influential metaphysical systems in history--Roman Catholicism--and home to one of the most important names in physics: Galileo Galilei.

The light in Florence is of a clarity I have never experienced; I can see why this is a haven for painters. But leave that aside. If you have ever been here, you know.

After saturating myself with the products of unparalleled artistic and religious expression, I visited the rather modest museum to Galileo, tucked in beside the bubbling Arno. These are some images from inside.



These are Galileo's fingers, kept under glass very much in the manner of reliquaries. Odd to see a person who so troubled the Church preserved in a style set aside for saints. One wonders whether enough traces of DNA remain in those desiccated bone cells to one day resurrect the great man; he would certainly be surprised to find himself, say, in the year 2115, and to discover how completely vindicated he was. (I know, I know: cloning doesn't "bring back" the same person. Just play along, huh?) How ironic would it be if his Inquisition-banned books contributed to the formation of a scientific culture that, centuries later, gave him that very thing to which the Church had laid claim--life after death?

Ah well. At least his discoveries live on . . .



Here is the actual telescope that caused all the trouble, or one just like it. It is astonishingly small; about the length of a pool cue, perhaps twice as thick. That's it.

Is there a moral in this unprepossessing object? Granted, it was high-tech for its day. But perhaps the moral is that revolutions in knowledge come not from advanced instrumentation alone, but from ability to think outside the dogma--to turn that ship-spying device toward the sky, as it were. (And to admit what you are seeing--no mean feat in itself. Galileo famously complained to Kepler that some of his opponents in the heliocentric debate refused even to look.)

Perhaps this is a moral for our day, as well. We may not be able to get any closer to confirming or disconfirming String Theory, for example--which, despite its general popularity in the press, is still entirely hypothetical; it bears repeating that the whole construction may be nothing more than a complex exercise in mathematics--without colliders that can reach unheard-of energies. If the kind of energy required turns out to be permanently inaccessible, we may be at an end on our quest. In that case, even if String Theory is true, we'll never know it.

Or . . . there may be a conceptual shift somewhere down the road that allows new understanding. To be sure, it won't happen without empirical data. History is replete with grand claims about the universe that cannot be tested, and so aren't worth terribly much; with no telescope at all, Copernicus' system itself might have remained "a complex exercise in mathematics," as Osiander wanted it to be. But perhaps Galileo's modest little device is whispering that the critical revolutions are the ones that happen inside the mind.



Last thought before we leave the museum: I signed the guest book with the FQX(i) logo. I'd like to think the great revolutionary would have approved.

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Nice blog post -horrible fingers, with gruesome history.

I was at a museum not so long ago. They had on display the clay heads of three murderers, formed from moulds taken at their execution. Together with an accompanying internal memo from the museum around the time of their donation. It said "put these with the other grotesques not for public display."

Not sure if that means we are considered less sensitive today and so should be allowed see such things. Or is it to let us marvel at the insensitivity of earlier times when they were produced? I wonder.

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"revolutions in knowledge come not from advanced instrumentation alone, but from ability to think outside the dogma".

Galileo Galilei already compellingly anticipated the dogma of Cantor's infinite cardinalities.

Maybe, Galilean transformation will prove still valid. At least "Galilean Electrodynamics", Apeiron, Proc. NPA, Physics Essays, and FQXi essays may question the dogma of special non-Galilean relativity.

Eckard

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Dear William Orem,

"I'm posting this month from Italy, home-base of one of the most influential metaphysical systems in history--Roman Catholicism..."

Could you please explain more about the meaning of "...home-base of one of the most influential metaphysical systems in history--Roman Catholicism...". Its the word 'metaphysical' that prompts me to ask. I see it used rather loosely in meaning and I am wondering what your use of it communicates to us. I don't presume to know your use of it. I am not Catholic. Just wondering what you intended to communicate. Thank you.

James

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Three thousand years ago, monotheism was pretty cutting edge logic, in a world of tribal deities and anthropomorphic superstitions. Now it's dogma. Like string theory, it can't be proved, or disproved.

Logic is inductive and deductive. First we extract principles from experience and evidence, then apply these insights to explaining other phenomena. Dogma is a function of ignorance; That of having forgotten the process by which principles are arrived at in the first place and assigning them metaphysical qualities. The Platonic realm is as metaphysical as the Gates of Heaven.

Obviously early humans wrestled with the experience of being aware and trying to explain and define it. That groups of individuals could function as a larger unit was a given. If any of us were working with such basic information, we would have arrived at conclusions similar to the ancients. It is a conceit of the greatest magnitude to look down on our forebearers for embellishing their insights and then think our speculations are free of frivolity.

What is more obvious to life on this planet, than the sun moving across the sky. Flowers turn to follow it. It is not theory, it is observation. Epicycles were extremely accurate models of the motions of celestial objects. When anomalies were detected, it didn't mean the theory was wrong, only that there was an as yet undetected epicycle and the search would be on for where it was needed. What Galileo did, in proposing a heliocentric model, wasn't really to overthrow the system. Actually he simply made the motion of the earth itself another cycle in the model and it simplified everything else.

As with the current contest, we all are not so much looking to overthrow the model, as to figure out what has been overlooked that would make all the rest fit together better and not need as much complexity.

The final arbiter is not math, but Ockham's Razor.

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Hello to all,

It is an intresting article.

I beleive that the strings were a beautiful idea.But it is time to converge in 3D with a pure deterministic way.

I can understand that it is difficult for the string theorists. The strings must be sorted with determinism and after the good correlations can be inserted.

If my spheres take the place of strings, it is logic. The phase of replacement can be harmonious. The jobs can be respected. It is there that the convergences can be interesting for the replacement of strings. But a good Occham Razzor is essential like says John. The uncompleteness is rational. We are just fdar of our walls.

The strings were a good idea, my spheres are a better ideas !!! Like it or not my friends, it is the pure rational reality.

Regards

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