Points of agreement between the realms of religion and science are scarce; Galileo relates to one of these. Although this project was never realized, one can still imagine its effect. A gigantic pendulum was to be mounted near the center of the nave of the Cathedral in Ulm, Germany. Slowly, its massive bronze bob would have swung back and forth above the heads of parishioners, thus marking the progression of time, while simultaneously recalling a highly charged episode in Catholic church history.
The work’s title refers us to the man first to note that a pendulum swings at the same rate (or periodicity) everywhere on earth. This discovery, crucial to the development of timekeeping technology, was later employed to give proof of the earth’s rotation, thus confirming the heliocentric view of the universe for which Galileo was unfairly punished by the Papal authorities. In 1633, his writings were banned and he was placed under house arrest until the end of his days. It was not until 1835 that the church came around to the fact that the earth actually does rotate around the sun, and not until 1992 that the Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła) finally admitted that the church had erred in condemning the scientist. Against this historical backdrop of struggle between empirical observation and religious faith, Galileo was conceived in a gracious spirit, to commemorate a moment of truce. The work’s mechanics were to be derived straight from those of the clock tower that graces so many places of Christian worship throughout Europe.
The smooth regularity of the pendulum’s swing would have engendered a mood of calm contemplation, equally conducive to prayer and reflection on the laws of physics. A quote from Galileo that Moeller is especially fond of could serve as an epigram for this work: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forget their use.”
The text of this post is by Jan Tumlir and taken from my new book with Lars Müller Publishers due out in September 2024.