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Biography: Galileo GalileiGalileo, Italian physicist and astronomer, was born
at Pisa February 15, 1564 and died at Arcetri, near Florence,
January 8, 1642. In 1581 he entered the University of Pisa to
study medicine and the Aristotelian philosophy, but soon abandoned
medicine for mathematics and physical science. In 1585 he left
the university and went to Florence to study under Otilio Ricci.
He was professor of mathematics at Pisa 1589-91, and at Padua
1592-1610, lecturing there to crowds of enthusiastic pupils from
all over Europe. In 1610 Cosmo II, grand duke of Tuscany, appointed
him philosopher and mathematician at the Florentine court, thus
relieving him of all academic routine and enabling him to devote
himself entirely to his scientific investigations.
Galileo's opposition to the Ptolemaic cosmology first
brought him under the suspicion of the Inquisition in 1611, though
he continued his investigations and publicly defended the Copernican
system. In a letter to Ms friend Father Castelli, dated Dec.
21, 1613, he maintained that the theologian, instead of trying
to restrict scientific investigation on Biblical grounds, should
make it his business to reconcile the phraseology of the Bible
with the results of science. In 1615 a copy of this letter was
produced before the Inquisition, with the result that the following
year Galileo was warned by the pope to desist from his heretical
teachings on the pain of imprisonment. In 1632 he again drew
the attention of the Inquisition by publishing a defense of the
Copernican system. After a long and wearisome trial he was condemned
on June 22, 1633, solemnly to abjure his scientific creed on bended
knees. This he did under threats of torture; but whether he was
actually put to the torture is still a mooted question. He was
also sentenced to indeterminate imprisonment, but this was soon
commuted to residence at Sienna, and the following December he
was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri, though he remained
under the surveillance of the Inquisition. In 1637 he became
totally blind.
Galileo's chief contributions to science are his formulation
of the laws governing failing bodies, the invention of the telescope,
the discovery of the isochronism of the pendulum, and numerous
astronomical discoveries, including the phases of Venus, four
satellites of Jupiter, and the spots on the sun. His works were
stricken from the Index in 1835. The most important are The
System of the World, in Four Dialogues (Florence, 1632); and
Mathematical Discourses and demonstrations touching two new
Sciences (Leyden, 1638).
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