Galileo reborn

伽利略的復(fù)生

In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science. The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen their evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.

But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy for Galileo's opponents has grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one's instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the 1840s were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo's spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?

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伽利略在世時(shí)是激烈論戰(zhàn)的中心。但是，自他逝世以來，那場科學(xué)上的紛爭早已平息了下來，甚至他和宗教法庭的著名沖突，我們今天也能正確如實(shí)地看待。但是相比之下，對(duì)于科學(xué)史家來說，伽利略只是在現(xiàn)代才變成了一個(gè)新的難題。 令人高興的是，過去對(duì)伽利略的看法并不復(fù)雜。他首先是個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)工作者，他蔑視亞里士多德學(xué)派的偏見和空洞的書本知識(shí)。他向自然界而不是向古人提出問題，并大膽地得出結(jié)論。他是第一個(gè)把望遠(yuǎn)鏡對(duì)準(zhǔn)天空的人，觀察到的論據(jù)足以把亞里士多德和托勒密一起推翻。他就是那個(gè)曾經(jīng)爬上比薩斜塔，從塔頂向下拋擲各種重物的人;他是那個(gè)使球體沿斜面向下滾動(dòng)，然后將多次實(shí)驗(yàn)結(jié)果概括成著名的自由落體定律的人。

但是，對(duì)那個(gè)時(shí)代的深化了解，尤其是以科學(xué)家革命中哲學(xué)潛流的新意識(shí)為依據(jù)，進(jìn)一步仔細(xì)研究，就會(huì)極大地改變對(duì)伽利略的看法。今天，雖然已故的伽利略繼續(xù)活在許多通俗讀物中，但在科學(xué)史家中間，一個(gè)新的更加復(fù)雜的伽利略形象出現(xiàn)了。與此同時(shí)，我們對(duì)伽利略的反對(duì)派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望遠(yuǎn)鏡所作的觀察確實(shí)是不朽的，這些觀察當(dāng)時(shí)引起人們極大的興趣，具有重要的理論意義，并充分顯示出了儀表和儀器的潛在力量。但是，如果我們想到，使用一架倍數(shù)有限的望遠(yuǎn)鏡需要長期的經(jīng)驗(yàn)和對(duì)自己儀器的熟悉程度，那么我們怎么能去責(zé)備觀察了天空但沒有看到伽利略所看到的東西的那些人呢?某位哲學(xué)家曾拒絕使用伽利略的望遠(yuǎn)鏡去觀察天空;到了19世紀(jì)40年代，有人硬把羅斯勛爵高倍望遠(yuǎn)鏡觀測到的螺旋狀星云說成是磨鏡工留下的磨痕。難道反對(duì)伽利略的哲學(xué)家比詆毀羅斯勛爵造謠者應(yīng)受到更大的譴責(zé)嗎?如果我們回想一下伽利略之前幾個(gè)世紀(jì)期間，曲面鏡一直是一種用于產(chǎn)生幻影而不是產(chǎn)生真象的把戲裝置，那么我們就會(huì)原諒那些當(dāng)時(shí)把伽利略觀察到的木星衛(wèi)星說成是伽利略用他的小望遠(yuǎn)鏡變出來的人們，何況一片曲面鏡就可歪曲自然，那么伽利略的兩片曲面鏡對(duì)自然的歪曲又該多大呢?

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