The dispute between the Church and Galileo might seem to us today to be a case of irrational religion trumping rational science. Yet, as we come to understand through the world of Richard N. Goodwin’s play, no scientist is completely rational or objective. By examining Galileo’s work closely, we can see how his science, like that of his fellow astronomers, mathematicians, and physicists, was as much an act of faith as anything else.
More