Galileo Bad, Archimedes Good
a day ago
- #Archimedes
- #History of Science
- #Galileo
- Galileo is considered overrated in the history of science, with his mathematical shortcomings leading to reliance on experiments.
- Galileo failed to solve the cycloid area problem mathematically, unlike contemporaries like Roberval, Torricelli, and Descartes who succeeded.
- Galileo's empirical approach to the cycloid resulted in an incorrect conclusion, highlighting the limitations of experiment without mathematical rigor.
- Archimedes' work on floating bodies exemplifies superior Greek science, with precise mathematical predictions that were empirically accurate.
- Archimedes' methodology contrasts with Galileo's; Archimedes focused on rigorous proofs, while Galileo relied on experiments due to his mathematical inadequacies.
- The podcast argues that Galileo's empiricism was a sign of failure, not innovation, and that his contributions have been misunderstood as pioneering when they were actually regressive.