Selected Writings

By Galileo Galilei, William R. Shea (translator), Mark Davie (translator)

Book cover of Selected Writings

Book description

'Philosophy is written in this great book which is continually open before our eyes - I mean the universe...'

Galileo's astronomical discoveries changed the way we look at the world, and our place in the universe. Threatened by the Inquisition for daring to contradict the literal truth of the Bible,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Selected Writings as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Richard Farr

Author

Few people have ideas of world-shattering originality; fewer still explain them in prose so limpid that the rest of us can follow the argument. I love receiving that gift in almost anything I read by Galileo. His writing also reminds us at every turn that great science—as his art much later came to be called—depends not just on those trite "observe, hypothesise, collect data..." recipes but, crucially, on thinking creatively about concepts. There's a man in full here, too: almost supernaturally brilliant, but also witty, defensive, cutting, proud, delighted, fearful, irascible. Of all people, of all time, he's on my…

From Richard's list on how science actually works… or doesn’t.