32 · 伽利略的复生
Galileo Reborn
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
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In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.
The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen there evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.
But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy for Galileo's opponents has grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one's instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo's spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?
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整篇课文
In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.
The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen there evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.
But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy for Galileo's opponents has grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one's instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo's spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?
伽利略在世时，是激烈争论的中心人物；但科学上的尘埃早已落定。今天，甚至对他与宗教裁判所那场著名冲突，我们也能比较恰当地看待。与此相反，偏偏到了近现代，伽利略却成了让科学史学家头疼的难题。
从前，人们眼中的伽利略形象简单明了，令人愉快。他首先是个做实验的人：蔑视亚里士多德学派的偏见和书本知识，向自然发问而不是向古人求教，并无所畏惧地得出结论。他第一个把望远镜转向天空，看到足以同时推翻亚里士多德与托勒密理论的证据。他登上比萨斜塔，把不同重量的物体从塔顶抛下；又让小球沿斜面滚落，最终把许多实验结果概括成著名的自由落体定律。
然而，对证据更细致的考察，加上对那个时代更深入的理解，尤其是对科学革命背后哲学思潮的新认识，已经深刻改变了这种看法。今天，旧形象的伽利略仍活跃在许多通俗作品中，但科学史学家已描绘出一个更复杂、更细腻的新形象。同时，我们对伽利略的反对者也多了几分理解。他用望远镜进行的观察，确实足以名垂千古：它们当时引起广泛兴趣，产生重要的理论影响，也有力展示了仪器设备所蕴藏的潜能。可是，要把望远镜的性能发挥到极限，既需要长期经验，也需要对仪器极其熟悉。想到这一点，我们还能责怪那些看了，却没看出伽利略所见之物的人吗？ 十九世纪四十年代，有人把罗斯勋爵的大型望远镜中看到的螺旋星云，说成磨镜工留下的划痕。相比之下，那位拒绝透过伽利略的望远镜观察的哲学家，难道就更该受责备吗？如果想到，在伽利略的时代以及此前的几个世纪，曲面玻璃在人们心目中主要是制造幻象、而非揭示真相的器具，我们或许也能理解那些声称木星卫星只是望远镜造成的假象的人。既然一片曲面玻璃就会歪曲自然，两片叠起来，又会歪曲到什么程度呢？
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