‘Galileo and the Science Deniers’ is a historical biography on the life of Galileo by astrophysicist Mario Livio which gives a glimpse into the life of a “man who was intellectually radical and well ahead of his time”. Galileo’s journey as a scientist started in 1583, when he dropped out of medical school and began to study mathematics. By 1590, he already had the audacity to criticise Aristotle’s teachings on motion, according to which things moved because of a built-in impetus. “In the preface to the book Galileo purported to discuss the Earth’s motion merely as a ‘mathematical caprice’, the text itself had a very different flavour. Galileo died in 1642 at his villa in Arcetri near Florence, after having been blind and bed-ridden for a while.

Source: Hindustan Times June 06, 2020 12:02 UTC