Galileo

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Galileo Galilei was born February 15, 1564, in
Italy near Pisa.
The Leaning Tower had been completed for about
200 years.
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Galileo Galilei did not set out to become a great
scientist. He made most of his discoveries
through ordinary means--by observing and
questioning everyday phenomena.
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When Galileo was 17, he entered the University of
Pisa to study medicine.
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During his first year, he noticed a lamp swinging
in the cathedral and observed that the lamp
always took the same amount of time to complete
an oscillation, no matter how large the swing.
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Thus, by the age of 19, Galileos first
accomplishment was to discover and define
isochronism the period of a swing of a pendulum
is independent of its amplitude (arc).
chronism
iso
iso
chronism
- same
- time
chronism
iso
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During his tenure as a math professor at the
University of Pisa, Galileo supposedly threw
objects off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to see if
their mass made any difference in the
amount of time it took the objects to fall.
Three years later, his contract was not renewed,
probably because he disputed Aristotlelian
professors.
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Galileo also disproved Aristotles famous theory
stating that large and small objects dropped at
the same time will fall to the earth at different
times.
He first thought about this during a hailstorm,
when he noticed that all sizes of hailstones hit
the ground at the same time.
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When Galileo was 33, he constructed a military
compass. He received lots of attention and money
as a result of this invention.
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When Galileo was 35, he heard about a spyglass
(telescope) developed by a Dutchman.
Soon after, he made a series of telescopes of
much higher quality with more than 20X the
magnification of the Dutch instruments.
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Galileo constructed a refracting telescope.
Objective lens gathers and bends light for
focusing.
Eyepiece
light path
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Galileos work with telescopes and his
astronomical discoveries led him to dispute
another one of Aristotles tenets, that the
heavens were perfect and immutable.
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With his more powerful telescopes, Galileo began
making astronomical discoveries, including,
mountains and valleys on the moon
image courtesy of NASA
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four satellites of Jupiter
Jupiter's four largest (of 13 known moons) are
known as the Galilean satellites. From top to
bottom, the moons shown are Io, Europa, Ganymede
and Callisto.
image courtesy of NASA
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sunspots
image courtesy of NASA
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and the phases of Venus.
image courtesy of NASA
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Galileo made careful observations and published
his findings in a book, Sidereus Nuncius (Starry
Messenger).
He claimed that all of his observations made
sense only if the Earth and all the planets
revolved around the sun, a theory called
heliocentrism.
Heliocentrism was first introduced by Copernicus,
an astronomer from Poland.
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Heliocentrism went against the teachings of
Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher whose
geocentric theories were supported by the
Catholic Church.
Galileo boldly continued to be a big supporter of
the Copernican theory.
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As a result of his findings, Galileo made a lot
of enemies and was called before the Inquisition.
The Inquisition was a permanent organization of
the Catholic Church created in the Middle Ages,
headed by the Pope, and established specifically
to deal with heretics, those who publicly
disagreed with the teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church.
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Galileo did not see a conflict between science
and religion. He believed that science reinforced
the idea of God.
The Catholic Church interrogated Galileo and
strongly warned him to present his findings as
hypotheses, not facts.
Galileo published another work after discovering
3 new comets, again supporting his theory of
heliocentrism.
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Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, speaking for the
Pope, had this to say about Galileos findings
. . . But to want to affirm that the sun really
is fixed in the center of the heavens and only
revolves around itself (i. e., turns upon its
axis ) without traveling from east to west, and
that the earth is situated in the third sphere
and revolves with great speed around the sun, is
a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating
all the philosophers and scholastic theologians,
but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering
the Holy Scriptures false.
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Galileo published a third book in total support
of heliocentrism and portraying others as fools
who supported other views.
The Catholic Church found Galileo strongly
suspicious of heresy and sentenced him to house
arrest at his villa in Arceti for the rest of his
life.
He was forbidden to publish and forced to recant.
Click for trial details!
Click for trial details!
Click for trial details!
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Galileos health declined, he lost his eyesight,
and the death of his daughter left him without
support.
Galileo was 78 years old when he died in 1642.
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Galileo died in Arceti. His remains were later
moved to Florence where he was buried close to
Michelangelo.
. Arceti
. Florence
Pisa
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Philosophy professors and theologians were both
responsible for Galileos accusations of heresy.
In 1979, Pope John Paul II ordered an
investigation into Galileos situations, and in
1992, the Vatican acknowledged its errors.
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Bibliography
Blotzer, Joseph. (1910). Inquisition. The
Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII. Online.
Available http//www.newadvent.org/cathen/o8026a.
html
Field, J.V. (1995). Galileo Galilei. Online.
Available http//www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/
history/Mathematicians/Galileo.html
Galileo. (13 Dec 2001). Microsoft Encarta
Online Encyclopedia. Online. Available
http//encarta.msn.com/find/print.asp?pg8ti017
35000sc 0pt1
Van Helden, Albert. (1995). Galileo Timeline.
Online. Available http//es.rice.edu/ED/humso
c/Galileo/galileo_timeline.html