Galileo ’ s Muse : Renaissance Mathematics and the Arts Reviewed by Anthony Phillips

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) is a pivotal figure in the development of Western science. Albert Einstein called him “the father of modern physics—indeed, of modern science altogether” [5]. More recently, Stephen Hawking wrote: “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science” [13]. Galileo’s trial and condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633 have become an international symbol of authority triumphing over knowledge. Since the issue was the structure of the solar system, the scandal has put in relief Galileo’s contributions to astronomy and cast into relative shadow the fundamental changes that he wrought in our intellectual approach to the natural sciences. These are surely what Einstein and Hawking refer to, and these are the subject of Galileo’s Muse. Galileo’s stature as the father ofmodern science derives from his insistence on experiment as the way to verify hypotheses about nature and his recognition of mathematics as the medium in which hypotheses and experiments could be compared. As he says [7, Vol. 8, 212]: