In the fourth book of Kim Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, the author creates a character named Iwang who is very similar to the real-life Galileo Galilei. Just like Galileo, Iwang is very interested in motion: "If we understood movement, we could study its manifestations in other things" (Robinson, 260).

Galileo Galilei "was an Italian scientist who formulated the basic law of falling bodies, which he verified by careful measurements. He constructed a telescope with which he studied lunar craters, and discovered four moons revolving around Jupiter and espoused the Copernican cause."