Who was Galileo Galilei?
We know that Galileo believed and proved that the planets revolve around the sun and not around the Earth. We know that he faced the Inquisition for publishing and defending that idea. We know that, in the face of opposition from the Church that he loved and the Pope Urban who had been his friend, Galileo recanted his findings. But, why did he recant? Who was this Galileo Galilei, this inventor, scientist, mathematician. . . .this man? The purpose of this online curriculum is to discover Galileo Galilei. This curriculum will focus on Galileo, his world, and his work and their influences on us today. Take a look at other curriculum web sites found at: http://www.CurriculumUnits.
Galileo was a man of many interests. Unlike today’s scientists who become experts in very specialized areas, Galileo studied a wide range of topics from mathematics to astronomy to physics. He was also a teacher, inventor, and writer. Galileo may be best known for opposing the Catholic Church’s view that Earth was the center of the universe, but he was in fact a religious person. As a teenager, he attended school in a monastery and dreamed of becoming a monk. In 1581, Galileo’s father sent him to the University of Pisa, Italy, to study medicine. He wanted Galileo to become a doctor so he could make a good living and eventually support his younger siblings. Galileo had other ideas. While at the University, he became fascinated with mathematics. He left the University to become a tutor of mathematics and then a professor. Galileo next became interested in falling bodies. Whether or not he dropped cannonballs from the Leaning Tower of Pisa is not known, but he did discover that the speed
Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who has been called “the Father of Modern Science”. Born on 15 February 1564 in Pisa, Italy, Galileo is known for greatly improving the telescope from only 3X magnification to 32X magnification, discovering the moons of Jupiter, observing hills and valleys on the Moon, discovering and analyzing sunspots, popularizing laws of motion for uniformly accelerated objects, making the compound microscope practical, being one of the first to understand sound frequency, and being one of the most ardent advocates of the theory of heliocentrism. Galileo was among the first people in Europe to practice rigorous scientific standards, setting up formal experiments and describing the results using mathematics.
