one truth begets another

Galileo was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. (Wikipedia) A polymath by Latin definition is “Universal Man” (homo universalis), an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. (Wikipedia)

“Universal Man” is a concept that has been associated to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, an illustration of Human’s range of motion. According to Richard Nilsen’s research of history, Galileo was led to the discovery of the Truths of movement, watching a chandelier, swaying in the wind. Nilsen shares an interesting story. Galileo was bored, sitting through a medical class and his eyes were drawn to the chandelier. Using his pulse as a measure for the swing, he found that regardless of the range of motion, the time didn’t change. “Whether the chandelier swung wide or narrow, the rhythm didn’t vary: A long swing took exactly the same time as a short swing.”

One thing led to another. Among Galileo’s many discoveries, he came to realize that “Copernicus had been right. Centuries of belief that the Earth was the center of the universe and the sun and planets revolved around the Earth was turned around and Copernicus put the sun in the center and demoted the Earth to a mere planet, like all the others, spinning around the central sun.”

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