Renaissance Genius: Galileo Galilei & His Legacy to Modern Science Book

This book gave me a greater appreciation for Galileo. I never knew what a large influence his father's musical experimentation by observation had on his life. I also never knew just how badly he was treated at the low points of his life.

It made me laugh that his dad told him (or was it he told his son?) not to be an artist because there's no money in it. That's been the saying for over 400 years now.

It's an enjoyable book. In my mind, I was continually trying to compare Galileo's timeline to historic events more familiar to me, such as an experiment taking place during the life of Shakespeare or living durint the Reformation. It was hard for me to place Galileo's life in the greater historical context. There is a chronological summary of Galileo's life at the end of the book, but I would have benefited from seeing where he fit in the grander scheme of history.

The "legacy to modern science" is one chapter at the end talking about physics and astronomy. I don't think the amount of detail covered there warrants a subtitle about it.

I question some of the formatting decisions, such as starting a sentece something like "Galileo said (see left)" and then seeing a quote along the margins to end the sentence, with no ending punctuation in the paragraph.

The book is riddled with careless copyediting typos and mistakes. It was distracting and a bit disappointing for me. It looks like someone forgot to proofread the book or that it was rushed in an attempt to ride the hype of the "400 years of the telescope" craze that was going on.