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

a PACIFIC READS selection

By: Dava Sobel

Category: Fiction

Published: 1999

Recommended by:

Christine Guenther, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics. She is co-author of the book series Ricci Flow: Techniques and Applications and recognized for her research on geometric curvature flows.

Personal letters have always allowed us to enter a public space through a private one. Dava Sobel constructs this entertaining, beautifully written biography of Galileo from the letters of his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste. We get to know Suor Maria Celeste and her life in 17th century Florence as she worries about her dad’s health, makes treats and medicines from citrons that he grows, and supports her impoverished convent. We get to know Galileo as a dad and as a witty, generous man.

We follow his work, and see how he persists in both his religious beliefs and the pursuit of his scientific discoveries. There are many layers to the portrayal of Galileo in this book, but most profoundly it elucidates his efforts to operate within an established order while publishing treatises that overturn academic and religious paradigms that had been held for millennia.

I was fascinated by this smart account of that era, and of course by my favorite of Galileo’s new paradigms, which was that mathematics, in its abstraction and aesthetics, can revolutionize our understanding of the world.

PACIFIC READS are books recommended by the faculty and staff at Pacific University