Galileo Galilee An Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, Galileo Galilee is best known for his major

role in the Scientific Revolution. An ardent supporter of Copernicanism, he brought about great improvements in the telescope as well as the consequent astronomical observations. His is also credited with discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named Galilean moons), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. For his contributions to the world of science and astronomy, he is often known as 'Father of Modern Observational Astronomy', 'Father of Modern Physics', 'Father of Science' and 'Father of Modern Science'.

Early Life & education Galileo Galilee was born in Pisa, Italy, on February 15, 1564. He was the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist and music theorist, and his wife Giulia Ammannati. Although Galileo's father was a musician and wool trader, he wanted his visibly talented son to study medicine. So, at the age of eleven, Galileo was sent off to study in a Jesuit monastery. After four years, Galileo announced to his father that he wanted to be a monk. Following this, he was hastily withdrawn from the monastery.

In 1581, when he was 17 years old, Galileo entered the University of Pisa, to study medicine, as his father wished. There, he got attracted to mathematics. He even started taking private instruction in math from Ostilio Ricci, and progressed rapidly. Galileo left the University in 1585 without a degree and returned to Florence to study Archimedes and Euclid. He supported himself by teaching mathematics in Florence and Siena.

Career In 1589, Galileo became a professor of mathematics at Pisa. In 1592, Galileo's contract at Pisa ended and was not renewed. However, he got the chair of mathematics in Padua, where he remained for 8 years. There, he started teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy. He remained at the university until 1610. During this period, Galileo made significant discoveries in both pure science and applied science. The great scholar also made huge advances and enhanced his reputation.

Experiments with Science and Mathematics Through experiments, Galileo proved that light hits the ground at exactly the same time as the heavy weight. Galileo continued to be interested in how things fall. Galileo found that when things fall they don't move at a constant speed, but they accelerate, or get constantly faster. He found a new rule. The distance traveled when you are falling is proportional not to the time, but to the square of the time. He experimented and worked out a rule for pendulums. The time of the swing is not proportional to the length of the pendulum, but the time is squared.

Telescope and Astronomic Discoveries In 1609, Galileo heard about the invention of the spyglass, a device that made distant objects appear closer. Galileo used his

mathematics knowledge and technical skills to improve upon the spyglass and build a telescope. Later that same year, he became the first person to look at the Moon through a telescope and make his first astronomy discovery. He subsequently used his newly invented telescope to discover four of the moons circling Jupiter, study Saturn, observe the phases of Venus, and study sunspots on the Sun.

Galileo's observations strengthened his belief in Copernicus' theory that earth and all other planets revolve around the Sun. After Galileo began publishing papers about his astronomic discoveries and his belief in a heliocentric or Sun-centered Universe, he was called to Rome to answer charges brought against him by the Inquisition (the legal body of the Catholic Church). early in 1616, Galileo was accused of being a heretic, a person who opposed Church teachings. Galileo was cleared of charges of heresy, but was told that he should no longer publicly state his belief that earth moved around the Sun.

Imprisonment & Death Galileo continued his study of astronomy and became more and more convinced that all planets revolved around the Sun. In 1632, he published a book that stated, among other things, that the heliocentric theory of Copernicus was correct. Galileo was once again called before the Inquisition and this time was found guilty of heresy. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1633. Because of his age and poor health, he was allowed to serve his imprisonment under house arrest. Finally, he left for the holy abode on January 8, 1642.

Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy in 1564,[13] the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist; and Giulia Ammannati. Galileo became an accomplished lutenist himself and would have learned early from his father a healthy scepticism for established authority, [14] the value of well-measured or quantified experimentation, an appreciation for a periodic or musical measure of time or rhythm, as well as the illuminative progeny to expect from a marriage of mathematics and experiment. Three of Galileo's five siblings survived infancy, and the youngest Michelangelo (or Michelagnolo) also became a noted lutenist and composer, although he contributed to financial burdens during Galileo's young adulthood. Michelangelo was incapable of contributing his fair share for their father's promised dowries to their brothers-in-law, who would later attempt to seek legal remedies for payments due. Michelangelo would also occasionally have to borrow funds from Galileo for support of his musical endeavours and excursions. These financial burdens may have contributed to Galileo's early fire to develop inventions that would bring him additional income. Galileo was named after an ancestor, Galileo Bonaiuti, a physician, university teacher and politician who lived in Florence from 1370 to 1450; at that time in the late 14th century, the family's surname shifted from Bonaiuti (or Buonaiuti) to Galilei. Galileo Bonaiuti was buried in the same church, the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, where about 200 years later his more famous descendant Galileo Galilei was also buried. When Galileo Galilei was 8, his family moved to Florence, but he was left with Jacopo Borghini for two years.[13] He then was educated in the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa, 35 km southeast of Florence.[13]

Galileo's beloved elder daughter, Virginia (Sister Maria Celeste), was particularly devoted to her father. She is buried with him in his tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Although a genuinely pious Roman Catholic,[15] Galileo fathered three children out of wedlock with Marina Gamba. They had two daughters, Virginia in 1600 and Livia in 1601, and one son, Vincenzo, in 1606.[16] Because of their illegitimate birth, their father considered the girls unmarriageable, if not posing problems of prohibitively expensive support or dowries, which would have been similar to Galileo's previous extensive financial problems with two of his sisters. [17] Their only worthy alternative was the religious life. Both girls were accepted by the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri and remained there for the rest of their lives.[18] Virginia took the name Maria Celeste upon entering the convent. She died on 2 April 1634, and is buried with Galileo at the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Livia took the name Sister Arcangela and was ill for most of her life. Vincenzo was later legitimised as the legal heir of Galileo, and married Sestilia Bocchineri. [19] Career as a scientist Although he seriously considered the priesthood as a young man, at his father's urging he instead enrolled at the University of Pisa for a medical degree.[20] In 1581, when he was studying medicine, he noticed a swinging chandelier, which air currents shifted about to swing in larger and smaller arcs. It seemed, by comparison with his heartbeat, that the chandelier took the same amount of time to swing back and forth, no matter how far it was swinging. When he returned home, he set up two pendulums of equal length and swung one with a large sweep and the other with a small sweep and found that they kept time together. It was not until Christiaan Huygens almost one hundred years later, however, that the tautochrone nature of a swinging pendulum was used to create an accurate timepiece.[21] To this point, he had deliberately been kept away from mathematics (since a physician earned so much more than a mathematician), but upon accidentally attending a lecture on geometry, he talked his reluctant father into letting him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead.[21] He created a thermoscope (forerunner of the thermometer) and in 1586 published a small book on the design of a hydrostatic balance he had invented (which first brought him to the attention of the scholarly world). Galileo also studied disegno, a term encompassing fine art, and in 1588 attained an instructor position in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, teaching perspective and chiaroscuro. Being inspired by the artistic tradition of the city and the works of the Renaissance artists, Galileo acquired an aesthetic mentality. While a young teacher at the Accademia, he began a lifelong friendship with the Florentine painter Cigoli, who included Galileo's lunar observations in one of his paintings.[22][23]

In 1589, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa. In 1591, his father died and he was entrusted with the care of his younger brother Michelagnolo. In 1592, he moved to the University of Padua, teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy until 1610.[24] During this period, Galileo made significant discoveries in both pure fundamental science (for example, kinematics of motion and astronomy) as well as practical applied science (for example, strength of materials and improvement of the telescope). His multiple interests included the study of astrology, which at the time was a discipline tied to the studies of mathematics and astronomy.[25] Controversy over heliocentrism Main article: Galileo affair

Cristiano Banti's 1857 painting Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition In the Catholic world prior to Galileo's conflict with the Church, the majority of educated people subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the earth was the center of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth,[51] despite the use of Copernican theories to reform the calendar in 1582.[52] Biblical references Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place."[53] Galileo defended heliocentrism, and in his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina argued that it was not contrary to passages in Scripture. He took the Augustinian position that poetry, songs, and instructions or historical statements in Scripture need not always be interpreted literally. Galileo argued that the writers of the Scripture wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world in which the sun does rise and set. In this way Galileo claimed that Scripture discussed a different kind of "movement" of the earth, and not rotations.[54] By 1615 Galileo's writings on heliocentrism had been submitted to the Roman Inquisition, and his efforts to interpret scripture seen as a violation of the Council of Trent.[55] Attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to defend himself and Copernican ideas. In 1616, an Inquisitorial commission unanimously declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture." The Inquisition found that the idea of the Earth's movement "receives the same judgement in philosophy and ... in regard to theological truth it is at least erroneous in faith."[56]