View source for And yet it moves

{{short description|Phrase attributed to Galileo Galilei on being forced to recant his scientific view}}
{{hatnote group|
{{For|the video game|And Yet It Moves}}
{{Redirect|Eppur si muove}}
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{{Infobox phrase
|        title = And yet it moves
|        image = Galileo in prison.jpg
|      caption = Photograph of a painting, which one of its former owners had attributed to [[Bartolomé Esteban Murillo]], depicting Galileo gazing at the wall of a prison cell on which the words "''E pur si muove''" appear (not fully legible in this image)
|original_form = {{lang|it|e pur si muove}} or {{lang|it|eppur si muove}}
|    coined_by = Attributed to Galileo Galilei
}}

"'''And yet it moves'''" or "'''Although it does move'''" ({{langx|it|'''E pur si muove'''}} or '''{{lang|it|Eppur si muove}}''' {{IPA|it|epˈpur si ˈmwɔːve|}}) is a phrase attributed to the Italian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher [[Galileo Galilei]] (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the [[Earth]] moves around the [[Sun]], rather than the converse. In this context, the implication of the phrase is: despite his recantation, the [[Roman Inquisition|Inquisition]]'s proclamations to the contrary, or any other conviction or doctrine of men, the Earth does, in fact, move ([[heliocentrism|around the Sun]], and not [[geocentric model|vice versa]]).

==History==
According to [[Stephen Hawking]], some historians believe this episode might have happened upon Galileo's transfer from house arrest under the watch of [[Ascanio II Piccolomini|Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini]] to "another home, in the hills above Florence".<ref name=Hawking03>{{cite book|last=Hawking|first=Stephen|title=On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy|year=2003|publisher=[[Running Press]]|isbn=9780762416981|pages=396–7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dCEgAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA396}}</ref> This other home was also his own, the ''[[Villa Il Gioiello]]'', in [[Arcetri]].<ref>
{{cite web
 |url=http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/itineraries/place/VillaGioiello.html 
 |title=Villa Il Gioiello 
 |last=Magrini 
 |first=Graziano 
 |translator=Victor Beard 
 |date=1 December 2010 
 |publisher=Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence 
 |access-date=14 May 2015 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150521232908/http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/itineraries/place/VillaGioiello.html 
 |archive-date=21 May 2015 
}}</ref>

The earliest biography of Galileo, written by his disciple [[Vincenzo Viviani]] in 1655–1656, does not mention this phrase, and records of his trial do not cite it. Some authors say it would have been imprudent for Galileo to have said such a thing before the [[Roman Inquisition|Inquisition]].<ref>Simons, Jay. [http://www.historyrundown.com/did-galileo-really-say-and-yet-it-moves/ "''Did Galileo Really Say: "And Yet It Moves"?''"], Retrieved on 1 January 2014.</ref><ref>Hayton, Darin. [http://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2012/06/03/toward-a-history-of-eppur-si-muove/ "''Toward a history of "eppur si muove"''"], Retrieved on 28 May 2017.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Ouellette |first1=Jennifer |title=We now have more evidence that Galileo likely never said "And yet it moves" |url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/we-now-have-more-evidence-that-galileo-likely-never-said-and-yet-it-moves/ |access-date=18 May 2020 |work=Ars Technica |date=17 May 2020 |language=en-us}}</ref>

The event was first reported in English print in 1757 by [[Giuseppe Baretti]] in his book ''The Italian Library'':<ref name=Drake>{{cite book|last=Drake|first=Stillman|author-link=Stillman Drake |title=Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography|year=2003|publisher=Dover Publications Inc.|location=Mineola (N.Y.)|isbn=0486495426|edition=Facsim.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OwOlRPbrZeQC}}</ref>{{rp|357}} {{quote|The moment he was set at liberty, he looked up to the sky and down to the ground, and, stamping with his foot, in a contemplative mood, said, ''Eppur si muove'', that is, ''still it moves'', meaning the Earth.<ref name=Baretti>{{cite book|last=Baretti|first=Giuseppe|title=The Italian Library. Containing An Account of the Lives and Works of the Most Valuable Authors of Italy. With a Preface, Exhibiting The Changes of the Tuscan Language, from the barbarous Ages to the present Time.|year=1757|publisher=London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand|url=https://archive.org/stream/italianlibraryco00bareiala#page/52/mode/2up|pages=52|quote=Text preceded by: "This is the celebrated Galileo, who was in the Inquisition for six years, and put to the torture, for saying, that ''the Earth moved''."}}</ref>{{rp|52}}}}
The book became widely published in ''Querelles Littéraires'' in 1761.<ref>[[Alfred Rupert Hall|A. Rupert Hall]], "Galileo nel XVIII secolo," ''Rivista di filosofia,'' 15 (Turin, 1979), pp. 375–78, 83.</ref>

In 1911, the words ''E pur si muove'' were found on a painting which had just been acquired by an art collector, Jules van Belle, of [[Roeselare]], Belgium.<ref>{{citation| title = Memorials of Galileo (1564–1642)|url=https://archive.org/details/b29931587/mode/2up|
publisher = the Courier Press | location = Leamington and London| date = 1929 | first = J.J. | last = Fahie | pages = [https://archive.org/details/b29931587/page/72/mode/2up 72–4]}}</ref> This painting is dated 1643 or 1645 (the last digit is partially obscured), within a year or two of Galileo's death. The signature is unclear but van Belle attributed it to the seventeenth century Spanish painter [[Bartolomé Esteban Murillo]]. The painting would seem to show that some variant of the ''Eppur si muove'' anecdote was in circulation immediately after his death, when many who had known him were still alive to attest to it, and that it had been circulating for over a century before it was published.<ref name=Drake /> However, this painting, whose whereabouts is currently unknown, was discovered to be nearly identical to one painted in 1837 by [[Eugene van Maldeghem]], and, basing their opinions on the style, many art experts doubt that the van Belle painting was painted by Murillo, or even that it was painted before the nineteenth century.<ref name="Livio">{{cite web|title=Did Galileo Truly Say, 'And Yet It Moves'? A Modern Detective Story|first=Mario|last=Livio|date=6 May 2020|publisher=Scientific American|url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/did-galileo-truly-say-and-yet-it-moves-a-modern-detective-story|access-date=14 Nov 2020}}</ref>

United States Supreme Court Justice [[Antonin Scalia]] was said to give an "''E pur si muove''" award to district court judges whose opinions were overturned by appellate courts but later vindicated by the Supreme Court.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Armour |first=Maureen |date=2009 |title=Remembering Judge Sanders: Judicial Pragmatism in the Court of First and Last Resort |url=https://scholar.smu.edu/smulr/vol62/iss5/2/ |journal=SMU Law Review |volume=62 |issue=5 |pages=1565}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Galileo Galilei}}
{{Urban legends}}

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[[Category:Italian words and phrases]]
[[Category:Galileo Galilei]]
[[Category:Copernican Revolution]]
[[Category:Dissent]]
[[Category:Galileo affair]]
[[Category:Politics of science]]
[[Category:Astronomical controversies]]
[[Category:Quotations from science]]
[[Category:17th-century neologisms]]
[[Category:17th-century quotations]]