What was Galileo Galilei ?

Thereafter, Galileo worked at the University of Padua and gave lectures. There, he made several followers and found his mission in life.

During those years he performed the experiments with falling bodies that made his most significant contribution to physics .

His father’s intention behind enrolling Galileo in university for medicine was to help him secure better paying jobs in the field of medicine. Galileo, on the other hand, liked mathematics and physics more than medicine.

For a brief period of time, Galileo also worked as an art teacher in the Italian city of Florence.For a brief period of time, Galileo also worked as an art teacher in the Italian city of Florence.

Galileo never married. However, he had three children with Marina Gamba. Two of the children were girls whom Galileo never allowed to marry out of the fear that he would have to pay a hefty dowry. So they were sent to convent and ended up becoming nuns.

In 1609 Galileo built his first telescope, improving upon a Dutch design.

The most important of Galileo’s inventions is the telescope. However, it is a little-known fact that Galileo was not the first person to invent it. He got the idea for a telescope from Dutch spectacles makers who had invented a spyglass to observe ships. Galileo used the idea to make his own improved telescope with much higher magnification, which he sold to Venetian merchants for spotting ships.

Another incorrect fact about Galileo is that he was the first to use a telescope to view the sky. Note that Thomas Harriot, an Englishman, was the first to observe the sky with a telescope. However, the only difference between the two is that Galileo also made some important conclusions with his observations of the sky, which Harriot was unable to make. Galileo became famous for his observations that gave the world a better understanding of celestial bodies.

In January of 1610 he discovered four new “stars” orbiting Jupiter—the planet’s four largest moons.

In 1610, Galileo was the first astronomer to discover the four moons of Jupiter. These moons were named “Galilean moons” after him. The four moons associated with “Galilean moons” are lo, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The largest of the “Galilean moons” is Ganymede. Thus, he discovered the first moons ever known to orbit a planet other than Earth.

In an attempt to gain favor with the powerful grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de Medici, he suggested Jupiter’s moons be called the “Medician Stars.”

After 400 years, Galileo’s telescope still survives, and is available in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Italy. The museum has two telescopes and objective lenses, which were built by Galileo himself.

“The Starry Messenger” made Galileo a celebrity in Italy. Cosimo II appointed him mathematician and philosopher to the Medicis, offering him a platform for proclaiming his theories and ridiculing his opponents.

Did you know that Galileo was kept under house arrest for eight years during the later portion of his life? His period of house arrest occurred between 1634 and 1642, during which time he wrote a book before becoming blind. The book contained the summary of his life’s work, science of motion and strengths of materials. He named the book – “Two New Sciences.”

Galileo’s observations contradicted the Aristotelian view of the universe, then widely accepted by both scientists and theologians.

Galileo could not publish his book during the time he was under house arrest. However, it was published in Holland in 1638. Alas, Galileo had become blind and severely ill by this time.

It is said that Galileo went blind because he used to observe the sun for long stretches of time while he was looking at sun spots with his telescope.

The moon’s rugged surface went against the idea of heavenly perfection, and the orbits of the Medician stars violated the geocentric notion that the heavens revolved around Earth.

In 1616 the Catholic Church placed Nicholas Copernicus’ “De Revolutionibus,” the first modern scientific argument for a heliocentric (sun-centered) universe, on its index of banned books.

Galileo was a prominent scientist of the 17th century, as he made a number of important contributions during that time.

Pope Paul V summoned Galileo to Rome and told him he could no longer support Copernicus publicly.

Galileo conducted a 20-year-long study on the science of motion (kinematics), and published a book called “The Little Balance.”

In 1632 Galileo published his “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” which supposedly presented arguments for both sides of the heliocentrism debate.

If you are a fan of Albert Einstein, or if he is your favorite scientist, you should know that Galileo was Albert Einstein’s favorite scientist.

His attempt at balance fooled no one, and it especially didn’t help that his advocate for geocentrism was named “Simplicius.”