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Galileo Galilei: Father of Modern Science

C S Yogananda

A striking feature of the writings of Galileo Galilei is that all of them with one exception – Sidereus Nuncius or The Sidereal Message – are in Italian, his native tongue, rather than in Latin as was customary in his time, and even till much later. Not only that, he wrote in a very lively and dramatic style too. His two principal works – Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic & Copernican, and Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences – are in the nature of a conversation between three persons, Simplicio representing the Aristotelian school of thought, Salviati representing Galileo and Sagredo, an intelligent layman (see the excerpt from Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences in Box 1 at the end). It is in these works of Galileo that his most significant contribution to the modern scientific thought shines through – ‘its method of enquiry’ and ‘its criterion of truth.’ He championed the method of pursuing research through observation and experiment.

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Address for Correspondence
C S Yogananda 
Department of Mathematics 
Indian Institute of Science 
Bangalore 560 012, India.

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