Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

"What I think Dava did utterly brilliantly was ostensibly to write a book about Galileo’s relationship with his daughter but actually to reveal a lot about Galileo and science along the way. This story doesn’t show the greatest side of Galileo because Galileo put his two daughters into a convent, essentially because he couldn’t find husbands for them. And the reason he couldn’t find husbands for them was because he was a fairly poor astronomer, with expectations of grandeur, if you like, and he couldn’t raise a dowry sufficient to attract the kind of men he thought his daughters should be married to, which would lead to the correct social standing for his family. Yes, they had an extraordinary relationship. In many ways I think it was the closest relationship he ever had with a female. Eventually they were living very close to one another and he would go and see her. I think what Dava did so brilliantly was show how, in his correspondence, they talked about his astronomy. They talked about his work and the trouble he was getting into with the church. The science does come through but in the most beautifully understated way. This is a fascinating story because it has been mythologised almost out of all recognition with reality. The traditional view is that Galileo proved that the earth went around the sun. The Vatican theologians thought this was impossible because of the way they interpreted the Bible so they tried Galileo for heresy. But the truth is much more subtle than that. It is much more intrigue-led and much more about power struggles and the nature of power. Essentially, what Galileo’s observation was missing was that killer piece of evidence that the earth moves. He thought he had it in the tides. He thought the tides were the inertia of the ocean as the earth rushed through space. And the Vatican priests were open to talking about this and they were always open to reinterpreting the Bible so long as you could prove what you were saying. But no one would stand up for Galileo and say, “Yes, we believe the tides prove it as well.” And in fact they don’t. Galileo was mistaken and he was wrong. Astronomy is fascinating in the way that it makes heroes of people who make discoveries. There are unexpected moments in which things can change completely. You suddenly get a deluge of new information. This is another of the reasons why I decided to write the Labyrinth novels because I could look at the context around what was going on. I could bring in these secondary characters who explain what was going on and, as you say, were very important in their own right. You are absolutely right – the way Hooke and Halley worked and what they did was essential. You couldn’t really have Newton without Hooke. Hooke helped with some of the experimentation of the ideas and some of the concepts. But also, on a personal level, he was a great sparring partner for Newton. The animosity between those two was like a cattle-prod to Newton. Newton would almost certainly have remained a reclusive alchemist in Cambridge if it hadn’t been for Hooke, and later Halley, asking him for help and wanting to publish his work."