The story of persecuting scientists

1, Bruno: This studious, bold and brave young man, as soon as he came into contact with Copernicus' theory of celestial movement, immediately aroused his fiery enthusiasm. From then on, he abandoned religious thought, only recognized scientific truth, and fought for it all his life.

Bruno believed in Copernicus, so he became a religious rebel, accused of being a heretic and excommunicated. In AD 1576, Bruno, who was only 28 years old, had to flee the monastery and go abroad for a long time, wandering in Switzerland, France, Britain and Germany. He has lived in Geneva, Toulouse, Paris, London, Wittenberg and many other cities. Nevertheless, Bruno always preached scientific truth. He gives lectures and writes articles everywhere, and often participates in debates in some universities. With his own pen and tongue, he praised Copernicus' theory without fear and mercilessly attacked the stale dogma of official scholasticism.

Bruno's major is neither astronomy nor mathematics, but he greatly enriched and developed Copernicus theory with superhuman foresight. In the book On Infinity, Universe and World, he put forward the idea of infinite universe, which is unified, material, infinite and eternal. There are countless celestial worlds outside the solar system. What human beings see is only a tiny part of the infinite universe, and the earth is just a tiny dust in the infinite universe.

Bruno further pointed out that all the stars in Qian Qian are as huge and hot as the sun, and these stars are flying in all directions at great speed. There are many planets like our earth around them, and there are many satellites around them. Life exists not only on our earth, but also on distant planets that people can't see.

Bruno broke the "spherical shell" that has bound people's minds for thousands of years with a brave blow. Bruno's outstanding ideas made his contemporaries feel at a loss and amazed! On the whole, Bruno's thoughts are simply "shocking". Even the astronomer Kepler, who was known as the "sky legislator" at that time, could not accept it. Kepler felt dizzy when reading Bruno's works!

In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Bruno is an extremely harmful "heresy" and a heinous enemy. They bribed Bruno's friends with cunning plots, lured Bruno back to China, arrested him on May 23, 1592, imprisoned him in the prison of the Inquisition, and interrogated and tortured him for eight years!

As Bruno is a prestigious scholar, Catholicism tried to force him to confess publicly to make him infamous, but they never imagined that all threats and inducements did not shake Bruno's belief in truth. A priest talked to Bruno, saying that according to his talent, if he returned to religion and painstakingly studied dogma, he would be promoted to the Vatican in Rome. He said frankly, "My thoughts are difficult to reconcile with the Bible."

People in the Catholic church are desperate. They showed fierce faces and suggested that the authorities burn Bruno alive. Bruno seems to have expected it. When he heard the verdict, he said contemptuously to the executioners who killed people without blinking an eye: "Your fear when reading the verdict is much greater than that when I walked to the fire." 1600 February 17, Bruno died heroically in Rome's Baihua Square, and a great scientist was burned to death.

Thanks to Bruno's vigorous propaganda, Copernicus's theory spread all over Europe. The Catholic Church is well aware that this kind of science is a great threat to them, so the Roman Catholic Conference decided in A.D. 16 19 to ban the operation of celestial bodies and not to publicize Copernicus' theory.

Bruno did not fear the stake, resolutely and unyieldingly fought against the church and theology, and made contributions to the development of science. His scientific spirit will last forever! 1889, a bronze statue of Bruno was erected in the flower square where he died, in memory of this brave man who devoted himself to science forever. Bruno was later called "the astronomer after Copernicus". Not only that, Bruno became more and more respected, and the church was saddened by the behavior at that time. ...

2. Galileo

16 15 One winter day, the weather was extremely cold and the sky was covered with clouds. Galileo came to Rome alone. Five years ago, in 16 10, Galileo bid farewell to the University of Padua and returned to Florence to become a court mathematician and philosopher in Tuscany and a professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa. It was also in this year that he visited Rome and was warmly received and treated with high standards. His series of new discoveries in astronomy and the invention of telescopes were valued by Pope Paul V, and Roman nobles and scientists were honored to know him. However, only five years later, the face of Rome has completely changed. There are no flowers and smiling faces, and there are cold expressionless faces everywhere. Even familiar people stay away from him like the plague.

What happened? It turned out that this time, Galileo's name was blacklisted by the Roman Inquisition, and he was summoned to Rome for trial by the notorious Inquisition.

What crime did Galileo commit? Let's start from the beginning.

15 and 16 century Europe is a crucial period for the transformation from feudal society to capitalist society. For a long time, in order to consolidate the feudal ruling order, Europe ruled by theocracy replaced science with theology and freedom with barbarism. Theologians absurdly claim that the universe is full of "angels of all levels and each other's crystal balls", and the stationary earth is in the center of these crystal balls. They admire the ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy's theory that the earth is the center of the universe, because in the eyes of theologians, the sun revolves around the earth, because God created the sun to illuminate the earth and treat mankind well. This is an eternal and irrefutable truth.

In order to maintain this absurd theory, the inquisition of the Catholic Church does not hesitate to use horrible violence against all those who dare to raise objections. 1327, Italian astronomer Tseko Dascori was burned alive. His crime is that the earth is spherical and there are people living in another hemisphere, but he was persecuted for violating the teachings of the Bible. 1600, 17 In February, the Italian philosopher Bruno was burned alive in the Hundred Flowers Square in Rome, because he propagated Copernicus everywhere and shook the geocentric theory.

Galileo was Bruno's contemporary. As early as when he was teaching at the University of Padua, he had read Copernicus's book On the Hypothesis of Celestial Motion (aka:>). In this book, the outstanding Polish astronomer boldly put forward the theory that the sun is the center of the solar system and the earth and other planets revolve around the sun, that is, the sun-centric theory, which aroused Galileo's great interest from the beginning. But Galileo was a scholar with a very serious scientific attitude. He thought that in the past, it was said that the sun revolved around the earth, but Copernicus put forward the opposite view. Which one is correct? Instead of jumping to conclusions, Galileo decided to use his telescope to prove who was right and who was wrong.

When Galileo's book Star Messenger was published, he was already a staunch supporter of Copernicus. Through his own observation and research, Galileo gradually realized that Copernicus' theory was correct, while Ptolemy's geocentric theory was wrong, and many of Aristotle's views were untenable. Galileo not only published a paper criticizing Aristotle, but also supported Copernicus' theory unabashedly through letters, and even sent a copy of the letter directly to the Roman church. In Galileo's view, the conscience of scientists is to follow the truth.

However, the Vatican will never let Galileo go. First, they issued a severe warning to Galileo, and then called him to Rome for trial. 16 16 February, the Inquisition announced that Galileo was not allowed to publicize Copernicus' theory, and he was not allowed to speak Copernicus' theory as truth in his lectures or writing.

Galileo will never forget that Bruno was burned alive by these respectable black-robed guards 16 years ago. If he dares to resist, he will never end up better than Bruno.

Under the threat of the church, Galileo was forced to give up Copernicus. He returned to Florence with great pain and spent many years in silence.

However, Galileo did not give up Copernicus' theory in his heart. On the contrary, his constant observation and in-depth study made him more convinced that Copernicus' theory was completely correct. Galileo lived an isolated life in a Sydney villa on the outskirts of Florence. His health is not as good as before, and the disease is torturing him cruelly, but he still persists in propagating Copernicus' theory. After a long period of deliberation, it took almost five years to finally produce a great book, Dialogue between Two World Systems.

On the surface, Dialogue between Two World Systems objectively discusses Ptolemy's geocentric theory and Copernicus' Heliocentrism in the form of a three-person dialogue, and makes an impartial discussion on who is right and who is wrong. However, when this book was published in February 1632, it is not difficult for careful readers to see that this book strongly criticized the wrong theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy, scientifically demonstrated Copernicus' theory of earth movement, and declared the complete bankruptcy of religious theology with sufficient arguments and a large number of indisputable facts.

Soon, the church with a more sensitive sense of smell than hunting dogs sniffed out the terrible thoughts contained in this book, and the bold conclusions revealed between the lines made theologians feel great panic. Those academic swindlers who had been dissatisfied with Galileo for a long time immediately colluded with the church, accused Luo Zhi, and plotted to create public opinion for persecuting Galileo.

The irreconcilable struggle between science and theology broke out. 1632 In August, the Roman Inquisition banned the sale of this book, and the Pope appointed a special committee to examine the book. Galileo had a premonition of disaster, and sure enough, in June 5438+10, he received a document from the Inquisition, asking him to go to Rome for trial.

At this time, Galileo was 69 years old, suffering from illness and inconvenient to move. Many people who care about him plead for him everywhere, but the Pope said angrily, "Unless he is proved unable to move, he will be handcuffed and taken to Rome if necessary!" "

In this way, at the beginning of 1633, Galileo came to Rome with illness. As soon as he arrived in Rome, he lost his freedom and was put in the prison of the Inquisition. No one was allowed to contact him.

In this way, an appalling persecution in human history began. In the bloody and horrible court of the Roman Inquisition, truth was rejected by falsehood and science was judged by theocracy. Those hideous church judges threatened Galileo to give up his faith with the stake, or he would be executed.

Galileo, who was old and sick, was desperate. He knows that truth cannot be destroyed by violence. Although he can sever ties with Copernicus, no one can change the order of the celestial bodies in the universe.

Under the interrogation and torture of criminal law, Galileo was forced to publicly express his remorse in court, agreed to give up Copernicus theory and sign the verdict.

"In order to punish you for this serious and harmful mistake and sin, to be more cautious, and to set an example and warning for future people," the presiding judge in black robes read out Galileo's verdict in public. "We announced that Galileo's book Dialogue between Two World Systems was banned by public order; Sentenced to temporarily officially put you in prison, according to our opinion, and saved your confession, read seven confession hymns every week for three years ... "

Galileo's later years were very miserable. The scientist who opened the human horizon and revealed the secrets of the universe was completely blind in 1637 and fell into boundless darkness. His only relative, his youngest daughter Maria, died before him, which was a great blow to him. However, even so, Galileo did not lose the courage to explore the truth. 1638, one of his "Discussions on Two New Sciences" was published in the Netherlands with the help of friends. This book is a systematic summary of Galileo's long-term research on physics and the first masterpiece of modern physics. Later, the inquisition relaxed its surveillance on him, and several of his students, including the famous physicist and discoverer of atmospheric pressure Torricelli, came to the old man's side to take care of him and ask him for advice. They can discuss scientific inventions happily together again.

1642 65438+1On October 8th, 78-year-old Galileo stopped breathing. But the truth he defended all his life is immortal. Ironically, today, more than 300 years later, 1979, 165438+ 10, at the meeting of bishops, the Pope proposed to reopen the Galileo case. To this end, world-renowned scientists formed a review Committee to review this unjust case. In fact, where is it necessary to try anything? Spaceships fly in space, humans leave deep footprints on the surface of the moon, satellites fly in the sky, and radio waves sent back by space probes fly out of the solar system ... These advances in modern science and technology have declared the complete bankruptcy of religious theology, and mankind will always remember the dazzling name Galileo.