Monday, February 15, 2010

Galileo - Happy Birthday!!! 1564 - 1642



Galileo was born in Pisa, Tuscany in 1564, the son of Florentine musician Vincenzo Galilei. Actually, Vincenzo was a revolutionary musician—he felt the formal church music that then dominated the scene had become sterile, and that classic Greek poetry and myths had a power the church music lacked, that perhaps could be translated into modern music. He attempted some of this, and his work began the development that culminated in Italian opera. Photo - NASA
To understand something of Galileo’s early upbringing, here is a quote from his father, Vincenzo Galileo:



“It appears to me that those who rely simply on the weight of authority to prove any assertion, without searching out the arguments to support it, act absurdly. I wish to question freely and to answer freely without any sort of adulation. That well becomes any who are sincere in the search for truth.” Read more – M. Fowler - Department of Physics - University of Virginia










"Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well-considered, and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit." Erik Erikson

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