
Who Was Galileo Galilei? - Hooke
http://www.universetoday.com/48756/galileo-facts/
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Simorgh
Book Recommendation: There's an absolutely stellar book on Galileo,
Copernicus, Newton, Descartes and several other brilliant people written in a
very readable fashion. It's called 'What Galileo Saw' and it's by Lawrence
Lipking. Perhaps my favourite book.

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atmosx
Looks awesome. Here's a direct link to AMZ:

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Galileo-Saw-Scientific-
Revolution...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Galileo-Saw-Scientific-
Revolution/dp/080145297X)

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giancarlostoro
One thing that baffles me is how the Kindle version is more expensive than a
used copy.

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vlehto
>Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564

State of Italy did not really exist then. Pisa belonged to Holy roman
empire.(?)

I hate this shit. I'd like to know why Galileo from HRM did stuff. And some
Joe Smart from Castile didn't. It takes ages to find the relevant states.

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anateus
I believe Pisa at the time was part of the Duchy of Milan (a constituent state
of the HRE) which at the time was under Spanish control (previously under
French rule).

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vlehto
Thanks. Lots of post antiquity significant scientific advancements seem to
have happened in HRE.

My personal bet is that it has something to do with many lords with
conflicting interests(Pope, King of spain(?), emperor and the duke). This left
some people unattended and free to experiment all kinds of weird stuff.

Also the Genoa and Venice seem to have played a big role. I think this relates
to how they based their economies on naval power, but had strategically very
bad positions. So they had to stay ahead in technology. (Byzantine empire on
the other hand controlled the most important choke point in European trade at
the moment. So they had no such need to innovate.)

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da1
> Also the Genoa and Venice seem to have played a big role. I think this
> relates to how they based their economies on naval power, but had
> strategically very bad positions. So they had to stay ahead in technology.

If that were the case "Italy" would have taken the place of "Spain" and
Portugal at that time regarding seatrade and clearly they didn't neither then
nor in the future being almost irrelevant.

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vlehto
"Italy" as in Genoa and Venice we're big players in Mediterranean sea trade
from 1100 to about 1600. During that time they developed banking, private
companies, big amount of technology and took part in developing scientific
method.

Power shifts, Spanish empire got upper hand in Atlantic trade. But they could
capitalize on already superior technology of Europe against their colonial
vassals. So no such pressure for innovation.

~~~
da1
True but Galileo's developments took place after the decline had clearly
started. That was my point.

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metafunctor
Also by the same author:

Who was Christiaan Huygens? [http://www.universetoday.com/48420/christiaan-
huygens/](http://www.universetoday.com/48420/christiaan-huygens/)

