Galileo,+Galilei

=Galileo, Galilei=

toc Read here pertinent facts about someone whose work is critical to a proper comprehension of scale.

=Biography= Galileo popularized the telescope, and so provides insight into early users of this instrument that translates macro-scopic visual data into human-perceivable data.

Bonner quotes him, p. 29:

From what has been already demonstrated, you can plainly see the impossibility of increasing the size of structures to vast dimensions either in art or in nature; likewise the impossibility of building ships, palaces, or temples of enormous size in such a way that their oars, yards, beams, iron-bolts, and, in short, all their other parts will hold together; nor can nature produce trees of extraordinary size because the branches would break under their own weight; so also it would be impossible to build up the bony structures of men, horses, or other animals so as to hold together and perform their normal functions if these animals were to be increased enormously in height; for this increase in height can be accomplished only by employ\ing a material thich is harder and stronger than usual, or by enlarging the size of the bones, thus changing their shape until the form and appearance of the animal suggests a monstrosity.