Identifier: adolfostahllectu00astruoft (find matches)
Title: The Adolfo Stahl lectures in astronomy, delivered in San Francisco, California, in 1916-17 and 1917-18, under the auspices of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Astronomical Society of the Pacific Aitken, Robert Grant, 1864-1951
Subjects: Astronomy
Publisher: San Francisco Stanford University Press
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ll upon it further. In addition to this,however, he made several other contributions to science whichwould have made him famous, an account of which wouldrequire several lectures. We shall dwell upon only two. Oneof these is his support of the Copernican heliocentric theory,which he upheld in his famous work entitled The Dialogue ofthe Tzvo Systems. It was this support of Galileo that un-doubtedly hastened its general acceptance. I wish to dwell upon the second of these contributions moreat length, as it marks one of the greatest epochs in the develop-ment, not only of astronomy, but in the whole realm of thought.It concerns that movement at the end of the Dark Ages knownas the Revival of Learning, or Renaissance. This probablybegan in the 15th century, but, in my opinion, the rapid revival(so rapid, indeed, as to make it practically the Revival itself)began with Galileo. As mentioned before, the dicta of Aristotle had held swayover the worlds thought for some fifteen centuries. Among
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PLATE XXXII. Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1727. Important Epochs in Astronomy 133 other things he had said that a large heavy body would fallfaster than a small light body. Galileo, true scientist as he was,would not take the word of anyone, even Aristotle, for a thingwhen it was in his power to prove or disprove the statement.So, mounting to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, before alarge gathering of interested people, he let fall from this heightsimultaneously two bodies, one large and heavy, the other smalland light. According to Aristotle the heavy body ought to havereached the ground much sooner than the light one. But theastonished people saw the two falling side by side, and landingat the base of the tower at practically the same instant. Thiswas one of the most dramatic experiments the world hasknown. With the fall of those bodies fell the influence ofAristotle in matters scientific. You can easily imagine that,with the disproving of one of his dicta, the others immediatelycame

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