Galileo

Author: Tian Zhansheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the founder of modern experimental science in the late Renaissance. Born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564, Galileo's father was a talented musician and educator. In 1581, at the age of 17, Galileo entered the University of Pisa on his father's orders to study medicine, but he was not interested in medicine and was fascinated by the physics of ancient Greece and the works of Aristotle, Euclid, and Archimedes. As a result, he left the University of Pisa and studied mathematics in Florence for four years. From 1589 to 1592, Galileo served as a mathematics professor at the University of Pisa, and from 1592 to 1610, he taught at the University of Padua. During this period, Galileo achieved great depth in mathematics, astronomy, and especially mechanics, with numerous academic accomplishments. Through extensive observation and experimentation, he summarized the law of inertia, the law of free-fall motion, and the principle of relativity; discovered the isochronism of pendulum motion; and observed celestial phenomena using his homemade 33 telescope, uncovering a series of astonishing astronomical discoveries. Galileo wrote his observations in the book Nuncius Sidereus (The Starry Messenger), published in 1610. The book introduced the ringed mountains on the moon, the galaxy composed of countless stars, the phases of Venus, Jupiter's four moons, solar spots, and more, providing strong support for Copernicus's theory of "heliocentric motion" while shaking the geocentric theory of Aristotle and Ptolemy. It was also an merciless blow to church theology and scholastic philosophy. This drew the hostility and hatred of the church. In 1611, Galileo was invited to Rome. During his time in Rome, Galileo fought fiercely against the church's idealistic worldview to establish the experimental method as a new approach to natural research, which further enraged the church. In 1632, his masterpiece Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was published but immediately banned by the church. On June 22, 1633, Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and sentenced to life-long house arrest, becoming a prisoner of the "Holy Office." In 1638, Galileo published Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences in the Netherlands, summarizing his years of research in mechanics. Galileo passed away in 1642 and was buried in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, at the age of 78.