Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems, published in Florence in 1632, was the most proximate
cause of his being brought to trial before the Inquisition. Using
the dialogue form, a genre common in classical philosophical works,
Galileo masterfully demonstrates the truth of the Copernican system
over the Ptolemaic one, proving, for the first time, that the earth
revolves around the sun. Its influence is incalculable. The
Dialogue is not only one of the most important scientific treatises
ever written, but a work of supreme clarity and accessibility,
remaining as readable now as when it was first published. This
edition uses the definitive text established by the University of
California Press, in Stillman Drake’s translation, and includes a
Foreword by Albert Einstein and a new Introduction by J. L.
Heilbron.
關於作者：
J. L. Heilbron is a professor of history and Vice Chancellor
Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley, and currently
Senior Research Fellow, Worcester College, Oxford. He is the author
of numerous books on the history of science, including most
recently The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories
and Geometry Civilized: History, Culture, and Technique.
Stephen Jay Gould is the Alexander Agassiz professor of zoology
and professor of geology at Harvard and the Vincent Astor visiting
professor of biology at New York University. Recent books include
Full House, Dinosaur in a Haystack, and Questioning the Millennium.
He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City.
內容試閱：
The First Day
Interlocutors Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicio
Salviati. Yesterday we resolved to meet today and discuss as
clearly and in as much detail as possible the character and the
efficacy of those laws of nature which up to the present have been
put forth by the partisans of the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic
position on the one hand, and by the followers of the Copernican
system on the other. Since Copernicus places the earth among the
movable heavenly bodies, making it a globe like a planet, we may
well begin our discussion by examining the Peripatetic steps in
arguing the impossibility of that hypothesis; what they are, and
how great is their force and effect. For this it is necessary to
introduce into nature two substances which differ essentially.
These are the celestial and the elemental, the former being
invariant and eternal; the latter, temporary and destructible. This
argument Aristotle treats in his book De Caelo, introducing it with
some discourses dependent upon certain general assumptions, and
afterwards confirming it by experiments and specific
demonstrations. Following the same method, I shall first propound,
and then freely speak my opinion, submitting myself to your
criticisms-particularly those of Simplicio, that stout champion and
defender of Aristotelian doctrines.
The first step in the Peripatetic arguments is Aristotle''s proof
of the completeness and perfection of the world. For, he tells us,
it is not a mere line, nor a bare surface, but a body having
length, breadth, and depth. Since there are only these three
dimensions, the world, having these, has them all, and, having the
Whole, is perfect. To be sure, I much wish that Aristotle had
proved to me by rigorous deductions that simple length constitutes
the dimension which we call a line, which by the addition of
breadth becomes a surface; that by further adding altitude or depth
to this there results a body, and that after these three dimensions
there is no passing farther-so that by these three alone,
completeness, or, so to speak, wholeness is concluded. Especially
since he might have done so very plainly and speedily.
Simp. What about the elegant demonstrations in the second, third,
and fourth texts, after the definition of "continuous"? Is it not
there first proved that there are no more than three dimensions,
since Three is everything, and everywhere? And is this not
confirmed by the doctrine and authority of the Pythagoreans, who
say that all things are determined by three-beginning, middle, and
end-which is the number of the Whole? Also, why leave out another
of his reasons; namely, that this number is used, as if by a law of
nature, in sacrifices to the gods? Furthermore, is it not dictated
by nature that we attribute the title of "all" to those things that
are three, and not less? For two are called "both," and one does
not say "all" unless there are three.
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