Galileo Galilei Research Paper

Galileo Galilei, born on February 15, 1564, was an Italian mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He had a prolific and varied scientific career. During his time as a professor at the University of Pisa and later the University of Padua, he developed some of his most valuable contributions to terrestrial physics. Later, he changed focus to astronomy, where he argued against the prevailing Aristotelian system of the universe. This conflict resulted in a trial against him by the Inquisition, and his eventual arrest under the charge of heresy. Galileo made significant scientific contributions in the fields of physics and astronomy, and in both domains, he successfully challenged the then-dominant Aristotelian thought in favor of an Archimedean

Specifically, he attempted “to explain the difference in the velocities of bodies moving up and down as a difference between their specific weights in relation to the mediums in which they moved” (Machamer 101), similar to Archimedes discovery of the displacement of liquids when an object is submerged in it. This model of motion, called hydrostatics, prompted his invention of the hydrostatic balance, which places two masses on opposite sides of a scale, where one side is submerged into a different medium than the other side. This results in a change in the tilt of the scale as the total downward force on the submerged side decreases. Galileo explained, in his De Motu hydrostatic model, that this phenomenon is called “levity, in analogy to the loss of weight in a medium of smaller specific gravity” (Machamer 111). Galileo, while not providing an entirely accurate explanation of this phenomenon, still realized an important scientific discovery that contradicted the Aristotelian view of that

In October 1604, a marvelous astronomical incident occurred over Central and Southern Europe: a previously-unknown star burned brightly for several days and then faded away. This event, now referred to as a supernova, had tremendous significance for Galileo and the field of astronomy at the time. In his book The Eye of the Lynx (published in 2002), David Freedberg writes that “the nova called into question the standard Christian and Aristotelian view that the heavens were eternal and incorruptible” (Freedberg 81). Though this incident questioned the premise of astronomy of that time, namely, that the heavens are perfect, it was not until five years later that Galileo began his journey to disprove much of the prevailing celestial knowledge. In 1609, Galileo learnt of Giovanni Battista della Porta’s recently-discovered method of using a concave lens to clarify and focus the magnified image of a convex lens, allowing him to observe distant objects. This discovery, which eventually became the telescope, was drastically improved by Galileo. With his much-improved telescope, Galileo began to observe the night sky, and Della Porta wrote that Galileo had “found four other planets in the sky, and thousands of new fixed stars, […] and