Galileo's Accomplishments

Questioning what we hear, read, and view contributes to our ability to be educated and engaged citizens.

Humanity has not gotten this by mere chance, the cars you see on the road and the satellites looming ominously above was not created by accident, every major discovery was made on that “what if?” Galileo was proven to be insane, shunned by his own people, because he took a chance, he took a stand. He stood in front of the most powerful organization in the world and questioned their beliefs. The Catholic Church, which was very powerful and influential in Galileo's day, strongly supported the theory of a geocentric, or Earth-centered, universe. After Galileo began publishing papers about his astronomy discoveries and his belief in a heliocentric,

He was already well-known from his earlier work and had developed a reputation as a brilliant researcher, but his laboratory was often untidy. One day, Fleming noticed that some of his staphylococci were contaminated with a fungus. He proceeded to show it to his to his former assistant Merlin Price who told him, "That's how you discovered lysozyme” Fleming could have easily stopped at this stage and threw the mould out and continues his research, but Fleming took that little “what if” and questioned the general stigma at the time that moulds only had negative purpose. From that day on Fleming grew the mold and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria. He identified the mold as being from the genus Penicillium, and, after some months of calling it "mold juice", named the substance it released penicillin on 7 March 1929. This discovery that could have been easily overlooked by anyone, but turned out to be one of the most significant medical discoveries of the 20th century. Fleming questioned the stigma of the time and I can very confidently say from doing so it contributes to his ability to be educated and engaged