Galileo Galilei text message story: Galileo DMs the Pope
A short, funny X DM-style chat starring Galileo Galilei (1564 to 1642), Italian astronomer and physicist, with the Pope. He was made to say one thing and is remembered for another, which is exactly the kind of line a text can carry in brackets.
Read the chat
- Galileo: Your Holiness, a small note
- Pope Urban: yes, Galileo
- Galileo: the Earth moves
- Pope Urban: we have discussed this
- Galileo: I know. I am only saying it moves
- Pope Urban: you must stop saying it
- Galileo: understood. it stopped moving
- Pope Urban: thank you
- Galileo: (it moves though)
Free to try, no account needed until you export.
Who was Galileo Galilei?
- In 1610 he reported four moons orbiting Jupiter, seen through a telescope he had improved.
- He was tried by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for defending the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun, and lived under house arrest afterwards.
- The famous line "and yet it moves" is attributed to him by tradition; there is no record that he said it.
The chat is invented. Galileo Galilei never sent these messages, and the story is labelled as fiction wherever it appears.
How this chat is built
It runs 9 messages between Galileo and Pope Urban. Galileo writes 5 of them. The longest line is “I know. I am only saying it moves” (Galileo) and the shortest is “yes, Galileo” (Pope Urban). The word “moves” comes back 3 times, which is where the rhythm of the joke comes from. It closes on “(it moves though)” from Galileo.
It is shown in the X DM look , one of the X DM-style chat tools. In the editor you can switch it to any other look and the whole conversation follows.