Galileo's Dream

This work they did together was unlike any other human bond he knew—unlike that with mistress or child, colleague or student, friend or confessor—unlike anyone—because they made new things together, they learned new things. Now once again they were on the hunt.

The epistemology of the hunt was to follow one thing after another, without much of an overall plan.

an effect the reverse of what one wanted was always suggestive.

“Don’t ask why.” Galileo snatched up the glass. “Why is what our philosophers ask, and that’s why they’re so full of shit. Because we don’t know why. Only God knows why. If He does.”

month earlier there had been no such thing in the world.

read God like a book, to solve him like an equation—it was the best sort of prayer.