ipl-logo

Galileo Galilei Research Paper

1014 Words5 Pages

Galileo Galilei Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15,1564 and died in January 8, 1642. Eldest son of Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati. Talian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of material and to the development of the scientific method. His formulation of circularinteria, the law of falling bodies, and parabolic trajectories marked the beginning of a fundamental change in the study of motion. His insistence that the book of nature was written in the language of mathematics changed natural philosophy from a verbal, qualitative account to a mathematical one in which experimentation became a recognized method for discovering …show more content…

In his middle teens Galileo attended the monastery school at Vallombrosa, near Florence, and then in 1581 matriculated at the University of Pisa, where he was to study medicine. However, he became enamoured with mathematics and decided to make the mathematical subjects and philosophy his profession, against the protests of his father In 1585 Galileo left the university without having obtained a degree, and for several years he gave private lessons in the mathematical subjects in Florence and Siena. During this period he designed a new form of hydrostatic balance for weighing small quantities and wrote a short treatise, la bilancetta The Little Balance that circulated in manuscript form. He also began his studies on motion, which he pursued steadily for the next two …show more content…

In December he drew the Moon’s phases as seen through the telescope, showing that the Moon’s surface is not smooth, as had been thought, but is rough and uneven. In January 1610 he discovered four moons revolving around Jupiter. He also found that the telescope showed many more stars than are visible with the naked eye. These discoveries were earthshaking, and Galileo quickly produced a little book, “Sidereus Nuncius The Sidereal Messenger”, in which he described them. He dedicated the book to Cosimo II de Medici (1590–1621), the grand duke of his native Tuscany, whom he had tutored in mathematics for several summers, and he named the moons of Jupiter after the Medici family: the Sidera Medicea, or “Medicean Stars.” Galileo was rewarded with an appointment as mathematician and philosopher of the grand duke of Tuscany, and in the fall of 1610 he returned in triumph to his native

Open Document