Galileo Galilei
1564-1642
Early Life
- Born in Pisa, Italy
- Family were nobles, but not rich
- Moved to Florence in the 1570s
Academia
- Attended the University of Pisa
- Studied the motion of the pendulum
- Developed the concept of the pendulum clock
- Disproved the Aristotelian physics model
- Wrote De Motu on his observations
- Later became a mathematics teacher at the University of Padua
- In 1610, he took a position in the Court of the Medici
Discoveries and Inventions
- All objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum
- A pendulum's period does not depend on the arc of its swing
- Mechanical inventions, like an improved pump
- Most famous invention: the telescope
- With this, Galileo observed the Sun, the phases of Venus, Jupiter's moons, and Saturn's rings
- These discoveries led to him concluding that the earth revolved around the Sun
Philosophical Contributions
- Wrote Il saggiatore in reaction to controversy over his Copernican ideas about the Solar System
- This condemned other works about comets and enforced his idea about a scientific method
- Galileo's philosophy was heavily grounded in empirical observations and advocated the pursuit of science
Galileo and the Inquisition
- Galileo faced warnings about his Copernican model from Cardinals
- When he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he was summoned to Rome to face the Inquisition
- In 1633, he was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to house arrest
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He died outside of his home in 1643 in Florence
Sources
http://galileo.rice.edu/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/224058/Galileo/