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- subject = European History
- title = Galileo Galilei
-
- Galileo Galilei
-
- Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa on the 18th of February in 1564. His father,
- Vincenzo Galilei, belonged to a noble family and had gained some distinction as a
- musician and a mathematician. At an early age, Galileo manifested his ability to learn
- both mathematical and mechanical types of things, but his parents, wishing to turn him
- aside from studies which promised no substantial return, steered him toward some sort of
- medical profession. But this had no effect on Galileo. During his youth he was allowed to
- follow the path that he wished to.
-
- Although in the popular mind Galileo is remembered chiefly as an astronomer,
- however, the science of mechanics and dynamics pretty much owe their existence to his
- findings. Before he was twenty, observation of the oscillations of a swinging lamp in the
- cathedral of Pisa led him to the discovery of the isochronism of the pendulum, which
- theory he utilized fifty years later in the construction of an astronomical clock. In 1588, an
- essay on the center of gravity in solids obtained for him the title of the Archimedes of his
- time, and secured him a teaching spot in the University of Pisa. During the years
- immediately following, taking advantage of the celebrated leaning tower, he laid the
- foundation experimentally of the theory of falling bodies and demonstrated the falsity of
- the peripatetic maxim, which is that an objects rate of descent is proportional to its weight.
- When he challenged this it made all of the followers of Aristotle extremely angry, they
- would not except the fact that their leader could have been wrong. Galileo, in result of
- this and other troubles, found it prudent to quit Pisa and move to Florence, the original
- home of his family. In Florence he was nominated by the Venetian Senate in 1592 to the
- chair of mathematics in the University of Padua, which he occupied for eighteen years,
- with ever-increasing fame. After that he was appointed philosopher and mathematician to
- the Grand Duke of Tuscany. During the whole of this period, and to the close of his life,
- his investigation of Nature, in all her fields, was never stopped. Following up his
- experiments at Pisa with others upon inclined planes, Galileo established the laws of falling
- bodies as they are still formulated. He likewise demonstrated the laws of projectiles, and
- largely anticipated the laws of motion as finally established by Newton. In statics, he gave
- the first direct and satisfactory demonstration of the laws of equilibrium and the principle
- of virtual velocities. In hydrostatics, he set forth the true principle of flotation. He invented
- a thermometer, though a defective one, but he did not, as is sometimes claimed for him,
- invent the microscope.
-
- Though, as has been said, it is by his astronomical discoveries that he is most
- widely remembered, it is not these that constitute his most substantial title to fame. In this
- connection, his greatest achievement was undoubtedly his virtual invention of the
- telescope. Hearing early in 1609 that a Dutch optician, named Lippershey, had produced
- an instrument by which the apparent size of remote objects was magnified, Galileo at once
- realized the principle by which such a result could alone be attained, and, after a single
- night devoted to consideration of the laws of refraction, he succeeded in constructing a
- telescope which magnified three times, its magnifying power being soon increased to
- thirty-two. This instrument being provided and turned towards the heavens, the
- discoveries, which have made Galileo famous, were bound at once to follow, though
- undoubtedly he was quick to grasp their full significance. The moon was shown not to be,
- as the old astronomy taught, a smooth and perfect sphere, of different nature to the earth,
- but to possess hills and valleys and other features resembling those of our own globe.
- The planet Jupiter was found to have satellites, thus displaying a solar system in miniature,
- and supporting the doctrine of Copernicus. It had been argued against the said system
- that, if it were true, the inferior planets, Venus and Mercury, between the earth and the
- sun, should in the course of their revolution exhibit phases like those of the moon, and,
- these being invisible to the naked eye, Copernicus had to change the false explanation that
- these planets were transparent and the sun's rays passed through them. But with his
- telescope Galileo found that Venus did actually exhibit the desired phases, and the
- objection was thus turned into an argument for Copernicanism.
-
- Galileo was tried by the Inquisition for his writings discussing the Ptolemaic and
- Copernican systems. In June 1633, Galileo was condemned to life imprisonment for
- heresy. His writings about these subjects were banned, and printers were forbidden to
- publish anything further by him or even to reprint his previous works. Outside Italy,
- however, his writings were translated into Latin and were read by scholars throughout
- Europe.
-
- Galileo remained under imprisonment until his death in 1642. However he never
- was a real prisoner for he never spent any time in a prison cell or being treated like a
- criminal. Instead he spent his time in fancy apartments. The rest of the time he was
- allowed to use houses of friends as his places of confinement the, always comfortable and
- usually luxurious.
-
- Outline
- Galileo Galilei
- I. Early Life
- A. Born in 1564 at Pisa
- B. Parents want him to be a doctor
- C. Eventually allowed to follow his own path
-
- II. Accomplishments other than in the field of astronomy
- A. Isochronism of the pendulum
- 1. later led to astronomical clock
- B. Center of Gravity in Solids
- C. Teacher at University of Pisa
- D. Theory of Falling Bodies
- E. Nominated to the chair of mathematics in the University of Padua
- F. Laws of Projectiles
- G. Laws of Equilibrium / Principle of Virtual Velocities
- H. Thermometer
-
- III. Astronomical Discoveries
- A. Designed highest powered telescopes of the time.
- B. The moon
- 1. Not a perfect and smooth sphere
- C. Jupiter
- 1. Four moons of Jupiter
- D. Venus and Mercury
- 1. Not transparent
- 2. Had phases
-
- IV. Later Life
- A. Tried by the Inquisition
- 1. For writings
- 2. Charged with Heresy
- B. Sentenced to house arrest
- 1. lived in luxury
- 2. never in a prison cell
- C. Writings Prohibited
- D. Died in 1642
-
- Bibliography
-
- 1. Drake, S. ,Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography. Greensborough Press, 1995.
-
- 2. Finnochiara, Maurice A. ,The Galileo Affair. The University of California Press, 1989.
-
- 3. Redondi, P. ,Galileo Heretic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.
-
- 4. Reston, J. Jr. ,Galileo: A Life. HarperCollins Publishing, 1994.
-
- 5. Segre, M. ,In the Wake of Galileo. New Brunswick Co., 1992.
-
- 6. Sharratt, M. ,Galileo: Decisive Innovator., Sanford Publishing 1994
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