# Given how polarizing a figure Galileo has become if you cut him out of the equation would Newton have gleaned enough cosmological knowledge from Kepler and others to have come up with his Principia?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-how-polarizing-a-figure-galileo-has-become-if-you-cut-him-out-of-the-equation-would-newton-have-gleaned-enough-cosmological-knowledge-from-kepler-and-others-to-have-come-up-with-his-principia/977124>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 26, 2022, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-how-polarizing-a-figure-galileo-has-become-if-you-cut-him-out-of-the-equation-would-newton-have-gleaned-enough-cosmological-knowledge-from-kepler-and-others-to-have-come-up-with-his-principia/977124 "2022-12-26T14:24:04Z")\
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**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-how-polarizing-a-figure-galileo-has-become-if-you-cut-him-out-of-the-equation-would-newton-have-gleaned-enough-cosmological-knowledge-from-kepler-and-others-to-have-come-up-with-his-principia/977124/6 "2022-12-27T12:31:03Z")

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In 1999, Time/Life Books released _The Life Millennium: The 100 most important events and people of the past 1,000 years_.

In their list, they ranked Galileo as being the #4 most influential person of the past 1k years, which I think is too high. But since these people put Edison as #1, a case can be made that the list makers were morons.

Anyway, if there isn’t a controversy, we can most assuredly make one: Galileo is _extremely_ overrated, nothing more than a media creation of anti-Catholic, pro-Protestant interests which should not be trusted. “Oooh, look, he rolls balls down a ramp! Brilliant!” 😛

In our game of a decade ago, we put Galileo @ #56, a much more sane ranking:

> [@The 100 Most Influential People - Try the Third](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-100-most-influential-people-try-the-third/536080/696):
>
> 1. St Augustine (54, -4)
> 2. Louis Dagurre (47, -10)
> 3. Galileo Galilei (12, -44)
> 4. Henry Ford (91, 36)
> 5. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (52, -2)
> 6. Michelangelo (50, -3)

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