The Bizzarrie of the Dialogo Myth, Marvel, and Make-Believe in Galileo's Force-Free Physics

Abstract

Galileo made several spectacular gaffes in the Dialogo that commentators have interpreted as important though flawed anticipations of Newtonian physics. These interpretations may not have attended sufficiently to Galileo's reference to the book as a philosophical comedy and to one of the gaffes as a bizzarria, and to his characterizing all of them as marvels. These facts suggest that he knew his claims were shaky and did not intend them as science in the modem sense. They may be construed, rather, as ingenious paradoxes made additionally difficult by the geometrical dress he gave them. It is argued that Galileo's gaffes, and possibly also his theory of the tides, arose from a combination of his love of paradox with his program for a force-free physics.

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