Galileo Galilei

Galileo tied the nuptial knot with a Venetian woman, Marina Gamba. The couple was blessed with three children, two daughters Virginia and Livia and a son, Vincenzo.

Both the daughters were enrolled at the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, where they lived for the rest of their lives. They became nuns while Vincenzo took up the profession of a lutenist.

Galileo left for the heavenly abode on January 8, 1642, after suffering from fever and heart palpitations.

Galileo Galilei was the first of the six children born to Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati. His father was a lutenist, composer, and music theorist by profession. Ever since an early age, young Galileo learned the technicalities involved in lute and became an accomplished lutenist.

He aspired to take up priesthood when he grew up. However, his father desired Galileo to be in the field of medicine as it promised a secured financial future. Complying by the wishes of his father, Galileo took to studying at the University of Pisa for a degree in medical.

There were two incidents which led Galileo to move from being a physician to a mathematician. The first was in 1581 when Galileo first noticed that a chandelier despite swinging in large and small arcs took almost the same time to return to the first position. Amused by it, he set up two pendulums of equal length and swung them with a variation in sweep. Interestingly, both the pendulums, irrespective of their sweeps, took the same amount of time to return to the first position and synchronized with each other.

The second incident was a lecture of geometry which he accidentally attended. Both the incidents made Galileo realize his true calling and he finally convinced his father to allow him to study mathematics and natural philosophy.

Galileo was exposed to the Aristotelian view of the world during his years in Pisa. Though not entirely wrong, it was then the leading scientific theory, and the only one that was sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church.

Upon leaving university, Galileo set his mind to create a thermoscope, which was the precursor to the presently used thermometer. He then published a small book which highlighted his work on hydrostatic balance, titled ‘The Little Balance’. It was this work that brought Galileo recognition and name in the scholarly world.

To support himself, Galileo took up the job as an instructor at Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence; his profile included teaching perspective and chiaroscuro. Simultaneously, he studied disegno and became quite interested in the artistic traditions of the city. Galileo also developed a profound interest in the works of Renaissance artists

No sooner than in 1589, Galileo was promoted to the chair of Mathematics at the University of Pisa. During his term at Pisa, Galileo conducted his famous experiment of dropping items of varied weight from the top of the Leaning Tower.

It was through the findings of the experiments that Galileo rejected Aristotle’s claim that speed of the falling object is directly proportional to its weight. He mentioned the outcome of the experiment in his paper titled Du Motu (On Motion). Instead of taking Aristotle’s view of motion, Galileo took Archimedean approach to the problem.

Due to his rejection of Aristotelian view, Galileo gained an unpopular status within the society. In 1592, His contract was also not renewed at the University of Pisa which led him to losing his position. However, Galileo’s patrons helped him secure the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua, which he served for eighteen years.

It was during his years at the University of Padua that Galileo made significant discoveries in the field of pure fundamental science as well as practical applied science.

It was the discovery of an instrument in Netherlands that had the ability to show distant things seem close that propelled Galileo to work out on the concept. He not only mastered the secret of the invention and came up with his own version of the spyglass, in no time he bettered his own technique to improve upon the instrument.

Galileo learned the art of lens grinding, which helped him produce increasingly powerful telescope. He presented the same to Venetian Senate, who impressed by the discovery rewarded with life tenure and a doubling of his salary.

Further working on the functioning of the telescope, Galileo bettered the instrument so much so that it could magnify up to 20 times and helped him have a clear vision of the Moon and its surface. It was through Galileo’s telescope that Moon’s rocky and uneven surface first came to limelight.

In 1610, Galileo discovered the moons revolving around Jupiter. He also claimed that there were a great number of stars that are there in the universe than those visible through naked eye. He even discovered that Venus goes through phases just as the Moon does and that Saturn appearance was different from those of other planets.