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Subject: [NOVA] "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens"
NEW FROM NOVA
- NOVA Presents "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens"
- Letter from the Producer
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NOVA PRESENTS "GALILEO'S BATTLE FOR THE HEAVENS"
http://www.pbs.org/nova/galileo/
Broadcast: October 29, 2002
(NOVA airs Tuesdays on PBS at 8 p.m. Check your local listings as dates
and times may vary.)
In this two-hour special, NOVA vividly reconstructs an epic historical
confrontation: the bitter clash between a fiery scientific genius,
Galileo Galilei, and the church authorities who tried to suppress his
astonishing discoveries. The noted British actor Simon Callow (Four
Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love) plays Galileo in dramatic
reenactments of key moments from his life: his pioneering telescopic
observations of the Moon and planets, his revolutionary experiments with
falling objects, and his fateful trial before the Inquisition for
heresy.
Here's what you'll find on the companion Web site:
Timeline, Articles, and More
His Life
Explore an illustrated chronology of Galileo's
life and work.
His Place in Science
Author Dava Sobel details why Galileo is the
father of modern science.
His Telescope (and Sir Isaac's)
Galileo's refractor and Newton's reflector remain
the two standard types of optical telescopes today.
His Big Mistake
How and why Galileo got it wrong about the tides.
Interactives
His Experiments:
Falling Objects
See how Galileo proved that light objects fall just
as fast as heavy ones.
Projectiles
Does an object falling straight down reach the ground
faster than one that also has lateral motion?
Inclined Planes
Play Galileo and calculate the rate of acceleration
due to gravity using an inclined plane.
Pendulums
Experiment with our online version of a pendulum.
Plus
Links & Books
Library Resource Kit
Teacher's Guide
Program Transcript
http://www.pbs.org/nova/galileo/
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LETTER FROM THE PRODUCER OF "GALILEO'S BATTLE FOR THE HEAVENS"
This year's graduating class at Cal Tech was required for the first time
to take a course in popular science writing. Some of the students
considered the course to be a kind of modern heresy -- to explain
science to the general reader must inevitably mean "dumbing it down."
That attitude would have seemed very odd to Galileo Galilei. He was a
genius arrogant enough to believe that his discoveries would change the
world, but he was practical enough to realize that he'd better be able
to explain himself to that world -- and explain it in an entertaining
way. Remember, Galileo came of age at a time when they didn't just burn
books, they burned authors.
We based our show on Dava Sobel's wonderful book "Galileo's Daughter,"
which takes us back into Galileo's world. Sobel reminds us that
he was the father not only of modern science but also of a young
woman who cajoled, encouraged, and prayed for her father from behind
convent walls.
Our star, Simon Callow, managed to bring the character of Galileo to
life. With Simon's great skills, the words Galileo left us in his books
and journals paint an intense picture of a testy, confident, ambitious
genius struggling against the voices of authority.
Galileo was forced to suffer greatly for his scientific discoveries,
but as his fellow Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, "It's always a
lot more dangerous to discover new ways of doing things than to go
looking for new continents."
David Axelrod
October 22, 2002
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