Review Questions by Lecture
Lecture 1: The Legend of Galileo
What are the principal features of the legend of Galileo's encounter with the Inquisition?
Lecture 2: Galileo and the Renaissance
1. Describe the cosmologies of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.
2. Describe the way the ancient Greeks explained the motion of projectiles, and the improvements made by the medieval philosophers. What contribution did Galileo make towards a solution of this problem?
Lecture 3: Galileo the Physicist
1. What was Galileo's most important contribution to the development of science?
2. How did Galileo establish the connection between the distance a body falls and the time taken?
3. What was Galileo's contribution to hydrostatics?
Lecture 4: Galileo the Astronomer
1. What were Galileo's most important astronomical discoveries, and how did they affect the cosmology of Aristotle?
2. What are the main arguments for believing that the earth moves round the sun?
3. Was Galileo a Platonist or an Aristotelian?
Lecture 5: Galileo and the Inquisition I
What is Cardinal Bellarmino's argument that the claims for Copernican astronomy cannot simply be dismissed as being irrelevant to the Bible?
Lecture 6: Galileo and the Inquisition II
How does Galileo respond, in "The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," to the claim that Copernican astronomy challenges the truth of the Bible?
Lecture 7: Galileo and the Inquisition III
1. What role do the different senses of "hypothesis" play in the dispute between Galileo and the Inquisition?
2. Why is it important to distinguish between discipline and doctrine in examining the actions of the Inquisition with regard to Galileo?
Lecture 8: Galileo: Theologian
How does Professor Carroll's analysis of Galileo as biblical exegete challenge the long established view that Galileo anticipates the modern distinction between the Bible and science?
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