Galileo in Florence

Poetry found in the words of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642):

"Philosophy is written in this grand book,
the universe, which stands continually
open to our gaze. 

But the book cannot be understood unless one first 
learns to comprehend the language and read the letters
in which it is composed.

It is written in the language of mathematics,
and its characters are triangles, circles, and other
geometric figures

without which it is humanly impossible
to understand a single word of it.”

Galileo Galilei, 1623
  
These words come from a poster in the Galileo Museum  in Florence, Italy -- a place I had the good fortune to visit recently.  Here are two photos from that visit.

A photo of a video at the Galileo Museum--showing Galileo's Compass

Paths of Falling Objects studied by Galileo (photo of Museum video)