GALILEO- A RENAISSANCE SCIENTIST
Galilei Galileo was born in February 15 1564 in the town of Pisa.He was the oldest of seven children and his father was wool trader and musician. His father wanted him to study medicine and he went to study in a jesuit monastery. After four years he was hastily withdrawn when his father learned he wanted to become a monk.In 1581 he went to study medicine in the University of Pisa ,he was 17 years old. The only subject he like at university was matamatics and soon left Pisa university without a degree. In 1592, Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. While teaching there, he frequently visited a place called the Arsenal, where Venetian ships were docked and loaded. Galileo had always been interested in mechanical devices. Naturally, during his visits to the Arsenal, he became fascinated by nautical technologies, such as the sector and shipbuilding. In 1593, he was presented with the problem involving the placement of oars in galleys. He treated the oar as a lever and correctly made the water the fulcrum(point on which a lever pivots). A year later, he patented a model for a pump. His pump was a device that raised water by using only one horse.He was an astronomer and a physicist.Galileo was sometimes unliked by other scientists because he proved many scientific facts were wrong. His first scienific discoverey was that objects fall at the same speed,no matter what weight they are.He proved his first discovery by dropping a cannon ball and a bullet from the leaning tower of Pisa.They both reached the ground at the same time.
Galileo was never married. However, he did have a brief relationship with Marina Gamba, a woman he met on one of his many trips to Venice. Marina lived in Galileo's house in Padua where she bore him three children. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia, were both put in convents where they became, respectively, Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela. In 1610, Galileo moved from Padua to Florence where he took a position at the Court of the Medici family. He left his son, Vincenzio, with Marina Gamba in Padua. In 1613, Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi, and Vincenzio joined his father in Florence.
In 1609 Galileo heard stories that a dutch spectacle maker had noticed that two lenses could be used to make objects from a distance look bigger.Using this information he invented the telescope by placing two magnifying lenes at each end of a lead pipe.He was now able to look at the moon magnified 30 times more than it appeared to the naked eye.He realised that the moon faced the sun at different times and at different angles. This made Galileo believe that Copernicus was right and that the earth and the other planets revolved around the sun.He published a book called "Dialogue concerning the two Chief World Systems",which led to an argument with the Catholic Church . The church taught that his theories were wrong as they taught that the earth was the centre of the universe and the sun revolved around it.. He was arrested and put on trial in front of the inquisition in Rome in 1633 ,he had to withdraw his claims that the earth revolved around the sun to save his life . He was sentenced to house arrest untill he died in 1642.
by Angela McCavana and Dionne Davis Kelly
Galileo was never married. However, he did have a brief relationship with Marina Gamba, a woman he met on one of his many trips to Venice. Marina lived in Galileo's house in Padua where she bore him three children. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia, were both put in convents where they became, respectively, Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela. In 1610, Galileo moved from Padua to Florence where he took a position at the Court of the Medici family. He left his son, Vincenzio, with Marina Gamba in Padua. In 1613, Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi, and Vincenzio joined his father in Florence.
In 1609 Galileo heard stories that a dutch spectacle maker had noticed that two lenses could be used to make objects from a distance look bigger.Using this information he invented the telescope by placing two magnifying lenes at each end of a lead pipe.He was now able to look at the moon magnified 30 times more than it appeared to the naked eye.He realised that the moon faced the sun at different times and at different angles. This made Galileo believe that Copernicus was right and that the earth and the other planets revolved around the sun.He published a book called "Dialogue concerning the two Chief World Systems",which led to an argument with the Catholic Church . The church taught that his theories were wrong as they taught that the earth was the centre of the universe and the sun revolved around it.. He was arrested and put on trial in front of the inquisition in Rome in 1633 ,he had to withdraw his claims that the earth revolved around the sun to save his life . He was sentenced to house arrest untill he died in 1642.
by Angela McCavana and Dionne Davis Kelly
