Galileo
Decisive Innovator

An entertaining, accessible biography of one of the greatest innovators ever known.

Michael Sharratt (Author), David Knight (Preface by)

9780521566711, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 April 1996

264 pages, 34 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.43 kg

'There are many other books which delve deeply and comprehensively into Galileo's life and works … but Sharratt's volume is an excellent introduction to the man aptly known as the 'father of modern physics'.' Irish Astronomical Journal

In this entertaining and authoritative biography Michael Sharratt examines the flair, imagination, hard-headedness, clarity, combativeness, and penetration of Galileo Galilei. To follow his 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 path-breaker for the newly-invented telescope, the decoder of nature's mathematical language, and a quite brilliant populariser of science. Even his reluctant excursion into theology has at last been officially and handsomely recognised 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 non-scientists and his mistakes are not overlooked. This is not a mythical story, but the biography of an innovator - one of the greatest ever known.

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.

Subject Areas: Biography: historical, political & military [BGH]