FATHER OF MODERN PHYSICS

GALILEO GALILEI

Galileo Galilei“In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”

FATHER OF MODERN PHYSICS

GALILEO GALILEI

Was born at Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564

Oldest of 7

His father wants him to study medicine because more money is involved in it

At 11, he was sent off to study in a Jesuit

Monastery

Vincenzo Galilei

Giulia Ammannati

Education• After 4 years, he said he wanted to be a monk. But

this was not what his father had in mind so he withdrew him from the monastery.

• In 1581, at the age of 17, he gave into his father’s wishes and entered the University of Pisa and took medicine just as what his father wanted him to do

• In 1585, he gave up his courses in Medicine without completing his degree and pursued to become a Mathematics Teacher. Then, he began teaching Math privately in Florence

Early Life•Galileo became an accomplished lutenist

himself

•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 would also occasionally have to borrow funds from Galileo for support of his musical endeavours and excursions

•Galileo was named after an ancestor, Galileo Bonaiuti

•  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 buried too

•The Ancient Greek scientist, Aristotle, taught that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, a belief still held in Galileo's lifetime. But Galileo wasn't convinced. Experimenting with balls of different sizes and weights, he rolled them down ramps with various inclinations. His experiments revealed that all of the balls boasted the same acceleration independent of their mass.

Galileo’s telescope•Galileo is often incorrectly credited with the

creation of a telescope. Instead, he significantly improved upon them

• In 1609, he first learned of the existence of the spyglass, which excited him. He began to experiment with telescope-making, going so far as to grind and polish his own lenses.  His telescope allowed him to see with a magnification of eight or nine times. In comparison, spyglasses of the day only provided a magnification of three.

•It wasn't long before Galileo turned his telescope heavenward. He was the first to see craters on the moon, discover sunspots, and track the phases of Venus

•And recent research seems to imply he discovered Neptune two centuries before it was officially known.

•Of all of his telescope discoveries, he is perhaps most known for his discovery of the four most massive moons of Jupiter (Io, Ganymede, Europa, Callisto), now called the Galilean moons.

•When NASA sent a mission to Jupiter in the 1990s, it was called Galileo in honor of the famed astronomer

Copernican system• In Galileo's lifetime, all celestial bodies were thought to orbit

the Earth. Supported by the Catholic Church, teaching opposite of this system was declared heresy in 1615.

• Galileo, however, did not agree. His research — including his observations of the phases of Venus and the fact that Jupiter boasted moons that didn't orbit Earth — supported the Copernican system, which (correctly) stated that the Earth and other planets circle the sun.

• In 1616,  he was summoned to Rome and warned not to teach or write about this controversial theory. But in 1632, believing that he could write on the subject if he treated it as a mathematical proposition, he published work on the Copernican system. He was found guilty of heresy, and was placed under house arrest for the remaining nine years of his life.

Kinematics:• He proposed a principle of inertia, which became

the foundation of Newton's First Law of Motion. Though this concept had been put forth by others, Galileo was the first to formalize it mathematically.

Astronomy, the Telescope, & the Heliocentric Universe:•In 1608, the telescope was invented in the Netherlands. Over

the next year, Galileo had heard about it and crafted his own improvements. With the improved telescope, he was able to observe the heavens more closely than ever before and identified three of Jupiter's moons. This, along with observing the phases of Venus, provided support for the Copernican heliocentric model of the universe over Ptolemy's geocentric model.In addition, he made many other significant observations. He was the first to observe sunspots, the rings of Saturn, and lunar mountains and craters.

Galileo's First Controversy:•Galileo's support of a heliocentric theory was

seen by the Roman Catholic Church as contradicting various scriptural passages.

•In 1616, Galileo first defended himself against the Church. Galileo was ordered not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moved and the Sun remained stationary at the center. For several years, Galileo was able to discuss heliocentric theory hypothetically without arousing undue ire from the Church.

Galileo's Trial:• In 1632, Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the

Two Chief World Systems with the permission of Pope Urban VII, who had supported Galileo in the earlier conflict (as Cardinal Barberini). Urban had two conditions:

-Galileo was to include arguments for both heliocentric and geocentric viewpoints

-Urban's own views on the matter were to be included

• Unfortunately, the book turned out to be biased in favor of heliocentrism and the Pope did not appreciate the perceived public ridicule. Galileo was ordered to stand trial for suspicion of heresy in 1633.

Galileo’s Imprisonment:• The 1633 hearing did not go as well as the one in 1616,

and Galileo was found guilty of heresy. His sentence had three parts:

-He was required to recant his heliocentric views -He was imprisoned (though this later got commuted

to house arrest at his estate near Florence) -His Dialogue was banned, and all other works written

by him (or to be written by him) were forbidden, though this latter part was not enforced.

• While under house arrest, Galileo wrote Two New Sciences, which outlined his earlier work in kinematics and the strength of materials. This book was praised by both Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

Death and Redemption• Galileo died of natural causes in 1642, after having gone blind.

• He was reburied at Santa Croce, sacred ground, in 1737. In 1741, Pope Benedict XIV authorized publication of Galileo's complete works. Heliocentrism was formally rescended as heresy in 1758.

• It was not until October 31, 1992, that the Church under Pope John Paul II expressed regret over how Galileo had been treated, in response to a Pontifical Council for Culture study.

• Galileo Galilei is one of the most influential and famous scientists in human history, having contributed to a wide range of fields and establishing the mathematical and experimental foundations of modern physics and astronomy.