GALILEO

Galileo Galilei
Early Years
Born 15 Feb. 1564 in Pisa
Educated in Camaldolese Monastery
Father wanted him to be a medical doctor
Interested in mathematics
Discoveries
Observed swinging lamps in Cathedral of Pisa and found period to be independent of the amplitude – idea for a pendulum clock
Used inclined planes to prove that bodies do not fall with velocities proportionate to their weight but proportionate to time.
Disproved Aristotle’s view when he observed a supernova and showed that the new star could not be close to the earth by parallax arguments
Found that projectiles follow a parabolic path
Galileo’s Telescope
Improved Dutch spyglass to achieve 8-9X magnification
Observed mountains on the moon, the Milky Way composed of tiny stars, and sunspots
Accurately measured the period for four of Jupiter’s moons
Saw that Venus showed phases like the moon did and must therefore orbit the Sun rather than the Earth
Copernican Theory
I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover ... I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy`s and Aristotle`s arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it.
In February 1632 Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican . -- Conclusion was right, but the proof was wrong
Catholic Church
Galileo found guilty of breaching the Inquisition of 1616 and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment
Allowed house arrest rather than imprisonment
On 31 October 1992 Pope John Paul II spoke on behalf of the Catholic Church admitting the theological advisors had made errors, but did not admit that the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because they were acting according to the best of their knowledge
Interesting Facts
In 1588 Galileo was invited to give a lecture on the dimensions and location of hell in Dante’s Inferno
He described his 18 years as professor of mathematics at the Univ. of Padua as the happiest years in his life
Cool Quotes
[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word.
Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect intended us to forgo their use.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn`t learn something from him.
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
Sources
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Galileo.html
School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St. Andrews, Scotland
http://galileo.rice.edu/index.html
The Galileo Project.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry?id=18251
Yahoo Encyclopedia