Galileo's Rediscoveries

"During the past three or four hundred years science has been rediscovered rather than discovered." -- Andrew Tomas, author, We Are Not The First, 1971

"Our science has only rediscovered and perfected old ideas." -- Andrew Tomas, author, We Are Not The First, 1971

"Sunspots were known to the ancient Greeks, but this knowledge was lost in the West and the spottiness of the Sun only rediscovered by Galileo in the early seventeenth century." -- John R. Gribbin, astrophysicist, The Death of the Sun, 1980

"If you look at practically any of the writings of ancient civilizations, the ancient Sanskrit writings of India are the ones I'm most familiar with, speak of spaceships, of weapons resembling our modern weapons, they had, apparently, the ability to look inside the human embryo and see what was going on, so, it appears, yes, ancient peoples did have quite a bit of knowledge that perhaps, some of it that we're rediscovering." -- Michael A. Cremo, author, August 2006

Jonathan Henry: Galileo's Rediscoveries

The history of astronomy is littered with forgotten discoveries which, when later discovered again, were heralded as brand new knowledge. ...

Knowledge is often lost or forgotten, and many "new" discoveries may be only the regaining of old knowledge. The "discoveries" of Galileo illustrate this concept. ...

Galileo thought, or at least claimed, that he had discovered the mountains of the moon. But he had simply rediscovered ancient knowledge that was lost. ...

... many modern discoveries are, in fact, rediscoveries of ancient knowledge. ...

How much past knowledge has humanity forgotten?