Lesson 32
Galileo reborn
伽利略的复生
First listen and then answer the following question.
听录音，然后回答以下问题。
What has modified out traditional view of Galileo in recent times?
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 fro Galileo's opponents ahs 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?
MICHAEL HOSKIN Galileo Reborn from The Listener
New words and expressions 生词和短语
controversy
n. 争议，争论
dust
n. 纠纷，骚动
clash
n. 冲突
Inquisition
n. （罗马天主教的）宗教法庭
perspective
n. 看法，怎么看
despise
v. 蔑视
generalize
v. 总结
undercurrent
n. 潜流
theoretical
adj. 理论上的
potentiality
n. 潜能
intimate
adj. 详尽的
familiarity
n. 熟知的
culpable
adj. 应受遣责的
Aristotelian
n. 亚里士多德学派的人
Aristotle
n. 亚里士多德（公元前384|322，古希腊哲学家）
Ptolemy
n. 托勒密（公元90|168，古希腊天文学家）
Leaning Tower of Pisa
比萨斜塔
spiral
adj. 螺旋状的
nebula
n. 星云
scratch
n. 擦痕
contrivance
n. 器械
distort
v. 歪曲
参考译文
伽利略在世时是激烈论战的中心。但，自他去世以来，那场科学上的纷争早已平息了下来，甚至他和宗教法庭的著名冲突，大家今天也能正确如实地看待。但相比之下，对于科学史家来讲，伽利略只不过在现代才变成了一个新的难点。
让人开心的是，过去对伽利略的怎么看并不复杂。他第一是个实验工作者，他蔑视亚里士多德学派的偏见和空洞的书本常识。他向自然界而不是向古人提出问题，并大胆地得出结论。他是第一个把望远镜对准天空的人，察看到的论据足以把亚里士多德和托勒密一块推翻。他就是那个过去爬上比萨斜塔，从塔顶向下抛掷积各种重物的人；他是那个使地球体沿斜面向下滚动，然后将多次实验结果概括成著名的自由落体定律的人。
但，对那个年代的深化知道，特别是以科学家革命中哲学潜流的新意识为依据，进一步仔细研究，就会很大地改变对伽利略的怎么看。今天，虽然已经过世的伽利略继续活在很多通俗读物中，但在科学史家里间，一个新的愈加复杂的伽利略形象出现了。同时，大家对伽利略的反对派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望远镜所作的察看确实是不朽的，这类察看当时引起大家很大的兴趣，具备关键的理论意义，并充分显示出了仪表和仪器的潜在力量。但，假如大家想到，便用一架倍数有限的望远镜需要长期的经验和对自己仪器的熟知程度，那样大家如何能去责备察看了天空但没看到伽利略所看到的东西的那些人呢？某位哲学家曾拒绝用伽利略的望远镜去察看天空；到了19世纪40年代，有人硬把罗斯勋爵高倍望远镜观测到的螺旋状星云说成是磨镜工留下的磨痕。难道反对伽利略的哲学家比诋毁罗斯勋爵造谣者应遭到更大的谴责吗？假如大家回想一下伽利略之前几个世纪期间，曲面镜一直是一种用于产生幻影而不是产生真象的把戏装置，那样大家就会原谅那些当时把伽利略察看到的木星卫生说成是伽利略用他的小望远镜变出来的大家，何况一片曲面镜就可歪曲自然，那样伽利略的两片曲面镜对自然的歪曲又该多大呢？
新定义英语正版图书购买
