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008			260424b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780300197297
040			_aIN-BhIIT
041			_aeng.
082			_a925.20 _bWOO/G
100			_aWootton, David _eAuthor _927723
245			_aGalileo : _bwatcher of the skies / _cDavid Wootton
260			_aLondon : _bYale University Press, _c2013.
300			_axii, 328 p. : _bill. ; _c19 cm
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aGalileo (1564–1642) is one of the most important and controversial figures in the history of science. A hero of modern science and key to its birth, he was also a deeply divided man: a scholar committed to the establishment of scientific truth yet forced to concede the importance of faith, and a brilliant analyst of the elegantly mathematical workings of nature yet bungling and insensitive with his own family. Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the center of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a “new physics”; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Wootton reveals much that is new—from Galileo’s premature Copernicanism to a previously unrecognized illegitimate daughter—and, controversially, rejects the long-established orthodoxy which holds that Galileo was a good Catholic. Absolutely central to Galileo’s significance—and to science more broadly—is the telescope, the potential of which Galileo was the first to grasp. Wootton makes clear that it totally revolutionized and galvanized scientific endeavor to discover new and previously unimagined facts. Drawing extensively on Galileo’s voluminous letters, many of which were self-censored and sly, this is an original, arresting, and highly readable biography of a difficult, remarkable Renaissance genius.
650			_aBiography _xAstronomers _zItaly _927785
942			_cGEN
999			_c15330 _d15330