GALILEO GALILEI

Roberto Bartali

This is a brief biography of one of the most important

scientist in the 17 th. century.
The years between 1500 and 1700 produced the pillars of
the modern science of physics and of course Astronomy:
Copernicus, Brahe, Galileo, Kepler and Newton.
Galileo Galilei, was an Italian astronomer and scientist,
he was really the father of the scientific method.
He was born in Pisa (famous for the Tower), in 1564
(Feb. 15), his family was not rich but it belongs to the
Tuscany nobility. When he was a child (10 years old), his
father and all the family moved to Florence. Galileo was
the first of 5 or 6 brothers.
In 1581 he enrolled at the Pisa University in the Arts
faculty (his father wished a medical career for him at
first).
After 4 years of study, he returned at Florence. When he
Figure 1 was at the university he studied the oscillation of
Portrait of Glileo Galilei
From: www.crystalinks.com/ pendulum, and , stated the laws that govern it. He was a
galileo.html follower of Archimedes, and he made some inventions
based on the though of him. In 1598 he start to teach
mathematics at Pisa University.
In 1591, his father died, leaving Galileo as the head of the family, one year later he start to
teach at the Padua University (near Venice in the north of Italy).
He lived there until 1610, teaching astronomy, and many other topics related to physics and
mechanics.
In 1594 he received a patent for the
invention of a water pump, there are
a lot of invention made by him,
surpassed only by the geniality of
another Italian scientist: Leonardo da
Vinci.
In 1604 (on Christmas day) he
observed the famous supernova, and
he demontrated using parallax
measurements that it was behind the
moon. This demonstration was
impressive, for those times, because
Figure 2
the heavens are not as perfect as
The Galileo Telescope people belived.
From: http://www.comune.pisa.it/aziende- In 1608, a german glass maker
esternalizzazioni/images/cann_gal2.jpg
named Hans Lipperhey, apply for the
patent of the invention of the

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 telescope in the Netherlands where he lived. Many
people try to get the patent for the invention, but there is
no consensus of who is the real first telescope maker.
However, the first written record about a telescope
belongs to Lipperhey.
In 1609, Galileo, heard about the telescope, the same
year Kepler published his laws of planetary motion.
In June of that year, Galileo made his first telescope, in
the following months, some other people in other
countries of Europe,
Figure 3 did the same thing.
Drawing of the observation of the
Moon by Galileo.
In the Autumn an
From: early winter of that
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/h year, he observed the
eavens.html
moon and in January
of the next year (1610) he observed Jupiter and some star clusters.
It take to him just a week to discover that the three little stars around the planet he observed
on Jan 7, and four on Jan 15, was in reality satellites orbiting around Jupiter.
In March of 1610, he published the Sideus Nuncius, and he dedicated the satellites of
Jupiter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany (Cosimo Medici), they are called Medicean (of
Medici) for that reason.

Figure 4
Pages of the Sidereos Nuncios where Galileo Publisher his observations of the Satellites of Júpiter.
From: www.hps.cam.ac.uk/ starry/galileo.html

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Kepler supported the discovery of Galileo with a letter first published in Prague and later he
published a brief treatise about them.
Thanks to his discovery, he earned the position (lifetime) of chief of mathematics at the
University of Pisa.
He observed also the Rings of Saturn, but he do not understand what they was. Ptolemaic
system died forever when Galileo observed the phases of Venus.
On March 1611 he went to Rome, The word "telescope" was coined.
In 1612 he published about the sunspots, first observed by Thomas Harriot in 1610.
In 1615, the Inquisition, told that the Copernican vision of the universe is heretical and he
was condemned to never again to treat these arguments in oral or written manner.
In 1624, his friend and patron, Maffeo Barberini, was elected Pope, under the name of
Urban VIII and he assured Galileo that he can continue to publish about the Copernican
System while he treated the argument just as a mathematical hypothesis.
In 1632, the Inquisition, presided by the Pope Urban VIII, prohibited the circulation of the
Dialogo and in 1633 he was interrogated by the tribunal (Inquisition) and condemned to
prison for an undefined period, than he was condemned to abjures for his errors in a formal
religious ceremony (after torture, because it was a normal practice at that time).
In 1634 he return to Florence, but under house arrest for life.
In 1637 he discovered a libration of the Moon.
In 1638 he lost completely the vision, but the Inquisition do not free him.
On Jan 8, 1642 he died in his house.
After 450 years the Catholic Church give a well earned apology to Galileo officially
admitting the Inquisition error.

References
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/