Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in Florence in 1632, was the most proximate
cause of his being brought to trial before the Inquisition. Using the dialogue form, a genre common in classical
philosophical works, Galileo masterfully demonstrates the truth of the Copernican system over the Ptolemaic one,
proving, for the first time, that the earth revolves around the sun. Its influence is incalculable. The Dialogue
is not only one of the most important scientific treatises ever written, but a work of supreme clarity and accessibility,
remaining as readable now as when it was first published. This edition uses the definitive text established by
the University of California Press, in Stillman Drake's translation, and includes a Foreword by Albert Einstein
and a new Introduction by J. L. Heilbron.