Galileo Galilei was a renowned Italian scientist celebrated for his profound contribution to modern science. Born in Pisa, Tuscany in 1564 to a successful musician, Galileo became a natural philosopher, a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer ( Brecht, 2015) . His significant contributions can be seen in the science of motion, the strength of materials, and astronomy. After moving to Florence in 1570s, he attended the monastery school at Vallombrosa and went to the University of Pisa. He was to pursue medicine, but his love for mathematics made him change his profession amid protests from his father. In 1585, Galileo quit the university and started to give private lessons on math in Siena and Florence. This is the time he designed and his first hydrostatic balance and called it “La Bilancetta” (“The Little Balance”) ( Magnani et al., 2012) . He applied for the chair of mathematics in 1588 at the University of Bologna unsuccessfully but clinched it a year later after finding some ingenious theorems on the center of gravity earning him recognition among mathematicians. He was the chairman through to 1610 and during this time, he performed several experiments that made him the key figure in the Scientific Revolution ( Magnani et al., 2012) .
During his time, the dominant science was the Aristotelian system which the Roman Empire adopted and enforced. Galileo disapproved this kind of approach saying that they were just based on philosophy and he went ahead to carry out supporting experiments. This move did not augur well with his colleagues, and his manuscript “De Motu” (On Motion) ( Magnani et al., 2012) made him unpopular. But he could not stop his quest to find the truth about the universe and the forces behind it thus making a major contribution to astronomy. In 1609, he developed his first telescope, an improvement of Dutch design. He observed the planet Jupiter and discovered it had four new “stars” which are the planet’s largest moons. He noted the discovery in a new treatise, “Siderius Nuncius” (“The Starry Messenger”) ( Magnani et al., 2012) , which also incorporated the observations of the moon and a large number of stars in the Milky Way.
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Though the observations, Galileo suggested that the earth is not the only center of motion. At the same time, he discovered that the surface of the earth was rugged and full of craters and mountains, and also the phases of Venus which resembled those of the moon. He also observed that the sun had some dark spots on its surface and dubbed these the “sunspots.” The shifting sunspots made him develop a model of the solar system stating that the earth moves around the sun and not the other way. In what is termed as heliocentrism, the Catholic Church put him under house arrest until his death in 1642 ( Brecht, 2015) because he defied the Aristotelian system, which the church promoted.
In Physics, Galileo observed the way bodies fell from a height and designed a law that said all bodies fell at the same speed, regardless of their shapes or weights. This was against the Aristotelian motion theory which suggested that heavier bodies fell faster. He deduced a mathematical formula to relate the distance traveled by a falling object and the square of the time it took to reach the ground. Galileo also conceptualized the inertia, which became the base of one of the three Newton’s laws of motion. He proved that mathematics is the scientific language of discovery and that natural law was incorrect ( Magnani et al., 2012) . The scientist also contributed to the field of engineering by developing and selling a military and geometric compass. This instrument was made from to rulers attached at right angles, connected with a third curved ruler. The device, known as a sector, was used in several fields like the military in calculating the elevation of a cannon barrel; surveying to measure distances and angles on the ground; merchants used it to calculate exchange rates of their currencies.
In conclusion, although Galileo faced challenges from the church, his work became the model for current scientific laws, and thus he is considered the father of modern science. This is true as the Catholic Church later apologized for mistreating him. His theories paved the way for discoveries and adoption in astrology, cosmology, physics, and mathematics.
References
Brecht, B. (2015). Life of Galileo . Bloomsbury Publishing.
Magnani, L., Nersessian, N., & Thagard, P. (Eds.). (2012). Model-based reasoning in scientific discovery . Springer Science & Business Media.
