In February of 1564, Galileo was born to Vincenzo Galile and Giulia Ammannati, in the town of Pisa, Italy. At first, he tried pursuing a career in the field of medicine as asked by his father but soon changed his course to one that would forever revolutionize not only history but- SCIENCE. Oldest of six siblings, Galilei had a huge burden of the family finances on himself. Even though he was born in a noble family, they had their own share of struggles, especially budgetary. This is also a reason why he wanted to discover and innovate for economic support. Who would have thought that this eventually would lead to him being the father of modern science. His achievements include making a better telescope, finding the truth behind the surface of the moon, figuring out the shape of the sun, discovery of Jupiter’s moons, the working of the pendulum, the refute of the geocentric theory, the law of falling objects, understanding law of inertia and many, many more.
Traveling to Rome, there were many theories explaining the forces of nature primarily dictated by the Roman catholic church. One of the most popular statements defined the working of the planetary motions — the geocentric theory. It stated that the earth was at the centre of the universe with all the cosmic bodies revolving around it. The church believed that going against the geocentric theory is going against the divine. After thoroughly studying this proposed hypothesis Galileo found its proofs to be wrong. He published his findings in his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Due to his ideas of a heliocentric space which proposed that the earth along with other planets in the solar system revolves around the sun which implied that the earth WAS NOT the centre of the universe, he was tried by the church for going against its principles. He spent his last few years under house arrest , during which his ideas about the world did not change and he continued to invest time working on it. The geocentric theory is only one of his major accomplishments in his life as mentioned earlier. This revolutionizing idea is not credited to Galileo himself. Copernicus and Kepler have had valuable contributions to the theory.
Another popular discovery credited to Galilei was the law of falling. He wanted to prove that the time taken by any bodies of different masses would be the same without air resistance. He did this by throwing two objects of different masses, but the same material off the Leaning tower of pisa. The weight of the objects don’t matter in the acceleration of the fall.
“The time taken by each swing of the pendulum is determined by the length of the string of the pendulum” was theorized, also by the big G.
Four of Jupiter’s moons were found by Galilei and are named after him- Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are also called the Galilean moons.
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The moon was initially thought to be “heavenly smooth and perfect” but Galileo proved otherwise, using his advanced telescope — made by himself to show craters on it.
Science and development were not shunned by the church in the olden times only the ones going against the bible and its preachings. The geocentric theory was also perceived to be true due the fact that most humans at the time thought for the sun and moon to move around the earth for day and night. This is a reasonable belief as in those times we didn’t have advanced instruments or could check the speed of our revolutions.
This is why we credit Galileo for being one of the founding fathers of modern science. Without his proofs and strong belief in his ideas we could still be in the 1600s. After Galileo’s arrest many smart mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers stopped publishing their work or did it under a different name. Many of Rene Descartes’ work hadn’t been brought out to the public, concerning his safety.
The law of falling is a hard theory to prove. In the early 1600 Galilei didn’t have the means to produce a vacuum container to test his theories. He had to find a way to prove them without the tech savvy machines we have today. This law has now become one of the key principles used in engineering. Used not only now, Galileo’s law was used by Newton himself. The law of falling objects played a key role in deriving his three laws of motion.
Galileo’s research on inclined planes proved that objects kept on moving until friction stopped it. Ths research laid the foundation of the law of inertia proposed by Issac Newton which became the first of his three laws.
It can also be said that the finding of the four moons of Jupiter added to the belief he wanted to spread- heliocentrism. If there were bodies revolving around other bodies, then there would be the possibility of the universe going around the earth. Him finding four moons also inspired further possibilities of more moons on jupiter which people then started to look for.
One of the earliest sciences that was introduced in modern science was Astronomy. Most of Galileo’s works have been in this field themselves. He did not just introduce a new law or theorem but a new refined way of thinking. Many founding stones to begin the research of complex science have been laid by him. The telescope made by him inspired leeuwenhoek to make a microscope which would soon change the thinking of the people of their own bodies. Starting his journey, just to make him a couple extra bucks, he soon changed the course of history. It is also said that he spent his last days under house arrest- believing in his ideas when at the time no one did. This wilful, unwavering determination portrayed by him is the reason we know the truth about our surroundings today.
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