The Modernist
Galilean way of discourse
The life of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) has a certain dramatic - one might almost say operatic - character, and this element of theatrical showmanship is evident even in the form of his scientific writings. His most famous works were dialogues, i.e., they are presented as plays, representing discussions between advocates of two opposing points of view. For example, in 1632 he published Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, in which fictional proponents of the ancient Ptolemaic/Aristotelian theory and the modern Copernican theory present their cases, each trying to win over a third character who represented an unbiased observer. The "modernist" is called Salviati, presumably named after Filipo Salviati, who until his death in 1614 had been a close friend of Galileo's in Florence. The clear-thinking representative of the educated public is called Sagredo, after Galileo's former student Giovanfrancesco Sagredo of Venice, who had died in 1620. The pedantic Aristotelian of the trio is called Simplicio, apparently named after Simplicius, a Greek philosopher of the 6th century AD known for his commentaries on Aristotle. It's natural to think of Plato's classic dialogues as the inspiration for this mode of presentation. In addition, it has often been pointed out that the dialogue form enabled Galileo to present the case for the Copernican world view while maintaining "plausible deniability", i.e., he could claim that he was not advocating any particular point of view, but was merely presenting a fictional discussion among advocates of different points of view. Of course, it's perfectly clear from reading the dialogues that Salviati (the character who advocates Copernicus' theory) speaks for Galileo, but since the Copernican thesis was considered heretical in those days, it is suggested that Galileo chose the dialogue to insulate himself from direct attacks, especially since he had promised to Church officials in 1616 "not to hold, teach, or defend Copernicanism". In Galileo's mind, this promise did not preclude him from presenting an "unbiased" review of the issues, as long as he did not explicitly endorse one side or the other. (As is well known, the Church took a different view.) The model provided by Plato's dialogues, and the usefulness of the dialogue form for surreptitious advocacy, may both have influenced Galileo's choice of format, but it's interesting to note that in his use of the dialogue form Galileo was actually carrying on a family tradition. Galileo's father, the musician and scholar Vincenzio Galilei (1525-1591), was one of the founding members of the Florentine Camerata, a group of men who met in the home of Count Giovanni Bardi to discuss topics mainly related to musical theory, but also touching on science and the arts. The modern art form known as opera was created by this group, and the very first operas were composed by its members as part of their campaign to restore what they believed to have been the classical Greek forms in music, with simple monodal melodies emphasizing the words. Vincenzio wrote a book on musical theory, entitled A Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music. It's also interesting to note that one of Vincenzio's guiding principles was that we should not follow authority in matters that can be directly checked by experience. For example, the accepted wisdom in those days was that the frequency of the tone produced by a vibrating string in tension would be cut in half if the string were doubled in length. This is true enough, but it was also commonly believed that the frequency produced by a string of a given length would be reduced by half if the tension was reduced by half. Vincenzio conducted a series of experiments to test these beliefs, and found that although the frequency is indeed proportional to the length (for a given tension), the frequency is actually proportional to the square root of the tension). He demonstrated this by attaching weights to strings, showing that in order to double the frequency of the tone, it is necessary to quadruple the weight.
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