Galileo: A Name to Remember

Galileo: A Name to Remember

There are many people whose lives have had such an enormous influence on science and the world we live in. Some of these men include such heavy-hitters as Einstein, Tesla, Darwin, Newton, and many others. Still, there is another among those previously mentioned who has had such an impact on how we understand our world and the space surrounding it. Considered “the father of modern science”, this scientist’s name is Galileo Galilei (“Galileo Galilei” par. 1).

Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy in 1564, and was the oldest of six children from his father, Vincenzo Galilei (Levy par. 2: “Galileo Galilei” par. 2). Coincidentally, this was the same year in which famous author, William Shakespeare, was born (Levy par. 2). Galilei’s was actually given his first name, “Galileo”, because of Tuscan custom of the era in which the first name of the firstborn child would be reminiscent of the surname, hence Galileo Galilei. (Levy par. 2).

In the year 1581, when Galileo was 17 years old, he started attending the University of Pisa, planning to study in medicine. However, he ultimately became sidetracked by mathematics and put more of his focus on following that, instead of medicine (“Galileo Galilei” par. 2). Galileo was chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa from 1589 to 1610 (“Galileo Galilei” par. 3).

Later, in 1583, he made his first important discovery (“Galileo Galilei” par. 2). Galileo discovered that maybe Aristotle was completely wrong in his beliefs that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, which Galileo discovered after experimenting with balls of different masses and weights. During these experiments, Galileo allowed the balls to roll down various ramps of various inclinations and discovered that objects, despite having varying mass and weight, would share a common acceleration, causing them to fall at the same rate (Taylor-Redd par. 3).

Another incredible discovery made by Galileo was the result of that involving pendulums. He discovered that a pendulum could be used as a measure of keeping time. This was a major revelation because there weren’t really any sources for accurate timekeeping, at the time (Taylor-Redd par. 4). The way he found out that pendulums could be used for accurate timekeeping was because of the pendulum’s held steady motion (Taylor-Redd par. 4). All of his effort put into pendulums seemed to have paid off, because, by the end of his life, Galileo had invented the first pendulum clock (“Galileo Galilei” par. 5).

While having invented the first accurate timekeeping pendulum was certainly a very important discovery, it is arguable that Galileo’s most important would be that involving the telescope. Galileo is often credited as being “the inventor of the telescope”, which is actually not quite true. The ‘telescope’ was originally based off of a design by Dutch eyeglass maker, Hans Lippershey (Cox par. 3). At the time, the invention was not yet called the “telescope”, but rather the “Dutch perspective glass” (Cox par. 6).

In 1609, Galileo received word about the “Dutch perspective glass”, and without ever even having seen the designs, created one of his own (Cox par. 9). Galileo’s new design was capable of magnification up to nine-times regular perspective, unlike the spy glasses available at the time, which could only magnify up to three-times (Taylor-Redd par. 6). Eventually, Galileo turned his telescope skyward, making him the first to ever truly see the finer details of space (Taylor-Redd par. 7). Galilei was able to examine the craters of our moon, but also gaze at the sunspots of our closest star, and track the phases of Venus (Taylor-Redd par. 7). Not only that, he was also the first to be able to get a close look at the many rings of Saturn, which was more than could be said of most others in his time (Taylor-Redd par. 7).

In 1610, Galileo, having recently discovered the power of his telescopic design, was also the first to discover the moons of Jupiter. While nowadays, multiple moons have been discovered orbiting the gas giant, it was Galileo who noticed the four largest moons (“Galileo Galilei” par. 4). He gave his discovery the name “Sidereus Nuncius” (or “The Starry Messenger”), which also contained descriptions of multiple new stars in the Milky Way (“Galileo Galilei” par. 4). Galileo also attempted to gain the favor of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de Medici, by suggesting that Jupiter’s moons be named “The Medicean Stars” (“Galileo Galilei” par. 4).

During Galileo’s lifetime, it was widely accepted that all celestial bodies were thought to orbit the earth, which was the view supported by the Catholic Church at the time (Taylor-Redd par. 9). However, Galileo openly disagreed with this belief (Taylor-Redd par. 9). His discoveries involving the moon, Venus, and Jupiter, all supported the [correct] idea that the Earth, and other planets, all orbit the sun (Taylor-Redd par. 10). These scientific truths that Galileo held to we're those that shared ideas the views first introduced by Nicholas Copernicus, whose knowledge introduced the idea of a heliocentric (or sun-centered) universe (“Galileo Galilei” par. 7). These were also views that were in direct opposition to those held, and supported, by the Catholic Church, views which were then banned (Taylor-Redd par. 7). It came to the point where even the Pope, Paul V, called Galileo into Rome and told him to support Copernicus theory no longer (Taylor-Redd par. 7). This, however, would not stop Galileo from believing in the truth, which he had seen for himself.

In 1632, Galileo’s book, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief