16 JUNE 2001, Page 32

Galileo's right error

From Dr. L.C. Laming Sir: It is not exactly clear which stick Professor Geach has got hold of the wrong end of (Letters 9 June), but the cause of Galileo's upsetting the Church was his claim that the Earth was not the stationary centre of the universe (Psalms xciii 1). Hence his sotto voce disclaimer, on being forced in 1633 to recant, 'But it does move.'

His preference for the so-called heliocentric (Copernican) system, combined with the Earth's rotation on its own axis, was simply because it made the observed motion of the planets much easier to account for. This involves no view as to the `immovability' of the sun, whatever that may mean.

L.C. Laming

London N6