Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican

ISBN: 037575766X

Author: Galileo Galilei

Condition: New

Galileos Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in Florence in 1632, was the most proximate cause of his being brought to trial before the Inquisition. Using the dialogue form, a genre common in classical philosophical works, Galileo masterfully demonstrates the truth of the Copernican system over the Ptolemaic one, proving, for the first time, that the earth revolves around the sun. Its influence is incalculable. The Dialogue is not only one of the most important scientific treatises ever written, but a work of supreme clarity and accessibility, remaining as readable now as when it was first published. This edition uses the definitive text established by the University of California Press, in Stillman Drakes translation, and includes a Foreword by Albert Einstein and a new Introduction by J. L. Heilbron.