15 February = Galileo Galilei Day

15 February = Galileo Galilei Day
On this day in 1564, the physicist, astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Galileo Galilei was born. Here's a small fragment from The Assayer in honor of his birthday.
 
In Sarsi I seem to discern the firm belief that in philosophizing one must support oneself upon the opinion of some celebrated author, as if our minds ought to remain completely sterile and barren unless wedded to the reasoning of some other person. Possibly he thinks that philosophy is a book of fiction by some writer, like the Iliad or Orlando Furioso, productions in which the least important thing is whether what is written there is true.

Well, Sarsi, that is not how matters stand. 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; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.

Reference:
http://jraissati.com/PHIL201/Galileo_1623_TheAssayer.pdf