Galileo Galilei – Flashcards

Born February 15, 1564 and died January 8, 1642, Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist and astronomer who made many theories and contributions to science today. Galileo was born in Pisa in 1564, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a musician and scholar

In 1609, he created the first ever astronomical telescope with a simple magnifying tool grinder.

In 1581 he entered the University of Pisa to study medicine, but was soon sidetracked by mathematics. He went back to the school in 1610 to teach physics and mathematics.

Venice, the most beautiful place to live at the time

After creating his new tool, the telescope, he made many discoveries, such as that the moon had an uneven mountainous surface, and that the milky way was made up of numerous stars. The next year, 1610, he discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the first satellites of a planet other than Earth to be detected, and he continuously studied the shape of saturn. His investigations led him to confirm the Copernican theory (that the earth orbits around the sun and not vice versa.) but he did not seek a doctrine until 1613, when he issued a work on sunspots.

When declaring his beliefs on the Copernican theory, he was going against natural beliefs (first pronounced by Aristotle) and was again as he said that he knew the moon's surface wasn't smooth, and from January to March of 1610 he describes his discovery of the moons of Jupiter. All this began the fight between religion and science and Galileo was then persecuted by the Catholic Church who said that he invoked their Savior and that to say that the sun is the center of the universe and not the earth was preposterous and he was sentenced to be condemned to the Holy Office for three years and once a week he had to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms. His book "DIALOGUES OF GALILEO GALILEI" was also prohibited from public publishing.

He promised to help the Venetian Navy, at the Arsenale, regain its primacy, by using physics to improve the placement of oars on the convict-rowed galleys.

At the Arsenale he made money by designing and selling new gadgets. He also made money by casting horoscopes for his students and wealthy patrons. (Did he believe in astrology? Maybe so. He cast them for himself and his daughters, without being paid.)

Galileo led us to know things that seem obvious today. That the moon is not smooth and that the earth spins diurnally around the sun.