Galileo

Galileo

" I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use"

--Galileo--

First of all, Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. His father Vincenzo Galilei, was a musician. Galileo's mother was Giulia degli Ammannati. Galileo was the first of six (though some people believe seven) children. His family belonged to the nobility but was not rich. In the early 1570's, he and his family moved to Florence. He was also the first to use the refracting telescope to make astronomical discoveries. With his new telescope, the moons on the planet Jupiter and the phases of Venus. The telescope also gave him the proof that the planets revolve around the sun. (the heliocentric theory)

Secondly, Galileo's originality as a scientist lay in his method of inquiry. First he reduced problems to a simple set of terms on the basis of everyday experience and common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved them according to simple mathematical descriptions. The success with which he applied this technique to the analysis of motion opened the way for modern mathematical and experimental physics.

Lastly, at the University of Pisa, Galileo learned the physics of the Ancient Greek scientist, Aristotle. However, Galileo questioned the Aristotelian approach to physics. Aristotelians believed that heavier objects fall faster through a medium than lighter ones. Galileo eventually disproved this idea by asserting that all objects, regardless of their density, fall at the same rate in a vacuum. To determine this, Galileo performed various experiments in which he dropped objects from a certain height. In one of his early experiments, he rolled balls down a gently sloping inclined plane and then determined their positions after equal time intervals.

Galileo invented many mechanical devices other than the pump, such as the hydrostatic balance. But perhaps his most famous invention was the telescope. Galileo made his first telescope in 1609, modeled after telescopes produced in other parts of Europe that could magnify objects three times. He created a telescope later that same year that could magnify objects twenty times. With this telescope, he was able to look at the moon, discover the four satellites of Jupiter,