Eppur si muove
"Eppur si muove" (or "E pur si muove" in standard spelling) ([epˈpur si ˈmwɔːve]) is an Italian phrase meaning "And yet it moves" said to have been uttered by the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei in 1633 after being forced to recant his belief that the Earth moves around the Sun before the Inquisition. Some historians believe this might have happened instead upon his transfer from house arrest under the watch of Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini to that of someone less favorable towards his views, near Florence.[1]
There is no contemporary evidence that Galileo uttered this expression at his trial; it would certainly have been highly imprudent for him to have done so. The earliest biography of Galileo, written by his disciple Vincenzio Viviani, does not mention this phrase, and depicts Galileo as having sincerely recanted. The legend is first recorded by Giuseppe Baretti in his work Italian Library in 1757 (124 years after the supposed utterance) and became widely published in Querelles Littéraires (1761).[2]
In 1911, the line was found on a Spanish painting owned by a Belgian family, dated 1643 or 1645. The painting is obviously ahistorical, because it depicts Galileo in a dungeon, but nonetheless proves that some variants of the "Eppur si muove" legend had been circulating for over a century before it was published,[3] perhaps even in his own lifetime.
Cultural references
- In the 19th century Spanish realist novel Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós, the character Aparisi uses the phrase "eppur si muove" erroneously, thinking it means "por si acaso" (just in case).
- In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Small Gods the phrase "the turtle moves" is used as a rallying cry by an organization of freethinking philosophers fighting a dogmatic establishment.
- In Teilhard de Chardin's book The Future of Man, this phrase is used at the beginning of the chapter.
- The German symphonic metal band Haggard's concept album Eppur Si Muove, is based on Galileo's biography.
- The third album by American rock band My Morning Jacket was entitled It Still Moves.
- In a fourth-season episode of the television series The X-Files, entitled "Terma", E PUR SI MUOVE appears in the opening credits. It replaces the usual sentence, THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
- The sixteenth episode of the fifth season of the television series The West Wing is titled "Eppur Si Muove".
- The title of the video game And Yet It Moves, where the central mechanic is rotating the game world about the player character, is a reference to this phrase.
- The song Albo-kalteak by basque rock band Berri Txarrak includes the line "eppur si muove".
- The first track on the album A posteriori by the musical project Enigma is called "Eppur Si Muove".
See also
Notes
- ^ Stephen Hawking, On the Shoulders of Giants, Running Press Book Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, 2002, p. 397.
- ^ A. Rupert Hall, "Galileo nel XVIII secolo," Rivista di filosofia, 15 (Turin, 1979), pp. 375-78, 83.
- ^ Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, (Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 2003) p. 357.