What did Galileo Galilei do? Five inventions of Galileo Galilei used in science
Galileo Galilei is a great Italian astronomer and scientist who made a huge contribution to the development of science with his outstanding discoveries. He was an active supporter of the heliocentric idea of the world, according to which the Earth and other planets move around the Sun, which led him into conflict with catholic church.
Childhood and youth
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, came from a poor aristocratic family, played the lute and wrote works on music theory. Vincenzo Galilei was in the community of the Florentine Camerata, whose members wanted to revive the ancient Greek tragedy. The result of the activities of musicians, singers and poets was the creation at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries of an absolutely new style in opera. His mother, Julia Ammannati, was engaged in housekeeping and raising four children: Galileo, Virginia, Libya and.
When the boy was 8 years old, the family moved to Florence, where at that time the Medici dynasty flourished, which was famous for its patronage of musicians, poets, scientists and artists.
At an early age, Galileo was sent to study at a school operating at the Benedictine monastery of Vallombrosa. From childhood, the boy showed the ability to learn languages, draw and strive for the exact sciences. From his own father, Galileo received the ability and talent for composition, as well as a good ear for music, but he was really attracted only by scientific activity.
Studies
At the age of 17, Galileo went to Pisa to study medicine at the university. In addition to key subjects and medical practice, the young man began to attend all kinds of mathematical classes. Galileo discovered the world of algebra and geometry, which significantly influenced his worldview. For three years of study at the university, he studied in detail all the works of ancient Greek scientists and thinkers, and also got acquainted with the heliocentric theory put forward.
At the end of the three-year term of study at the university, Galileo was forced to return to Florence, as the family simply did not have the funds for further education. The leadership of the university did not meet the talented and capable young man, so they did not allow him to complete the course and receive a degree in science. However, by this time Galileo had already managed to acquire an influential patron in the person of the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, who truly admired the talents and abilities young man in the field of invention. The aristocrat, in turn, “put in a good word” for the ward before the Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand I of the Medici and thereby ensured his salary at the court of the ruler.
Work
The Marquis del Monte helped the young talented scientist to obtain a teaching position at the University of Bologna. In addition to lectures, Galileo led a fairly fruitful scientific activity, solving problems in mechanics and mathematics. In 1689 he returned to the University of Pisa only as a teacher of mathematics. In 1692 Galileo moved to the city of Padua.
Combining the work of a teacher at a local university and conducting scientific experiments, Galileo publishes his own books On Motion and Mechanics, in which he challenges Aristotelian ideas. At the same time, one of the most important events in the life of a scientist happens - he invents a telescope, which made it possible to observe the life of celestial bodies. The discoveries made by him with the use of the new instrument were set forth in the Star Herald.
Upon arrival in Florence in 1610, Galileo published the Letters on Sunspots, which was negatively received by the Catholic Church: the works of the Catholic scientist were called provocative.
In 1611, Galileo leaves for Rome in order to visually demonstrate the invented telescope to Pope Paul V. Galileo's instrument was shown very correctly and even received approval from the metropolitan astronomers, however, his request for a final decision on the heliocentric system of the world determined his fate: the papists called him a heretic, and the accusation process itself began in 1615. In 1616, the concept of "heliocentrism" was recognized by the Roman Commission as false.
Philosophy
The key postulate of Galileo Galilei's worldview is that the world is recognized as objective, regardless of its subjective perception by people: the universe is infinite and eternal and was initiated by a divine first impulse, nothing in space disappears without a trace, only the form of matter changes. At the heart of the material world is the mechanical movement of particles, in the study of which one can learn the laws of the universe. According to Galileo, nature is the true subject of philosophy, by studying which one can become closer to the truth and the fundamental principle of all things.
Galileo was an adherent of two methods of natural science: experimental and deductive. Using the first method, he could prove hypotheses, and with the help of the second he could achieve the completeness of the knowledge gained. In their works, scientists primarily relied on the teachings of Archimedes.
Astronomy
Created in 1609, the telescope allowed Galileo to begin to observe the heavenly bodies. Over time, the scientist was no longer enough to magnify the device three times to conduct full-fledged experiments, so he soon invented a telescope that had the ability to magnify objects 32 times.
The first luminary that Galileo studied with the help of a new invention was the moon. As a result of his observations, the scientist discovered many craters and mountains located on its surface. The first discovery confirmed the fact that the Earth, in its physical properties is no different from other celestial bodies - this was the first refutation of Aristotle's assertion that there is a difference between earthly and heavenly nature.
The second key discovery in astronomy was the identification of the four satellites of Jupiter, which was subsequently proven by numerous satellite images. With this conclusion, the scientist challenged the conclusions of the opponents of Copernicus, who were of the opinion that if the Moon revolves around the Earth, then the Earth, in turn, cannot rotate around the Sun.
In addition, Galileo discovered sunspots, which he had been observing for a long time. Having studied the luminary in detail, he came to the conclusion that the Sun rotates around its axis.
Observing Mercury and Venus, Galileo determined that the orbits of these planets are closer to the Sun than the orbit of the Earth. In addition, he discovered rings around Saturn and even described the planet Neptune. While observing the stars of the Milky Way with a telescope, the astronomer became convinced of their infinite and immense number. Unfortunately, due to the imperfection of technology, he was unable to complete all his discoveries.
Experimentally and empirically, the scientist proved that the Earth rotates not only around the Sun, but also around its own axis, which further strengthened him in the correctness of the hypothesis put forward by Copernicus.
Mechanics
According to Galileo Galilei, mechanical movement is the basis for the physical process in nature. He considered the universe from the point of view of a complex mechanism, which consists of the simplest causes, so mechanics became the cornerstone for him in his scientific activity. Galileo made a large number of discoveries in mechanics, and also determined the directions for subsequent discoveries in physics.
Galileo was the first to establish and prove the law of falling, confirming it with the help of the empirical method. He also derived a physical formula for the flight of a body that moves at an angle to a horizontal surface.
Galileo formulated the law of inertia, which became a fundamental axiom in mechanics. Another discovery of the scientist is the explanation of the principle of relativity in classical mechanics, as well as the discovery and derivation of the formula for the oscillation of pendulums. The latest research was the basis for the invention of the first pendulum clock.
Maths
In his mathematical judgments, the scientist was close to the ideas of probability theory. He outlined his own research on this subject in his essay “Discourses on the Game of Dice”, published only 76 years after his death.
Disagreements with the Catholic Church
After 1616, which became a turning point in Galileo's scientific biography, the scientist was forced to go into the shadows. He was afraid to openly express his ideas, so the only book that was published by him after Copernicus was declared a heretic was the essay of 1623, which was called The Assayer.
After the change of power took place in the Vatican, Galileo perked up, believing that the new Pope Urban VIII would react positively to the ideas of Copernicus, unlike his predecessor. However, in 1632, after the appearance in print of the Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World, the Inquisition again began an accusatory process against the scientist. The story of the accusations being made against him repeated itself again, only this time for the scientist everything ended much more deplorably.
Personal life
While in Padua, the young scientist met Marina Gamba, a citizen of the Venetian Republic, who became his common-law wife. The couple had three children - son Vincenzo and two daughters (Livia and Virginia). Due to the fact that the children were not born in a married marriage, the girls later had to become nuns. At the age of 55, Galileo was able to legitimize only his son, so he managed to get married and give his father a grandson, who later also became a monk.
After Galileo was outlawed by the Inquisition, he moved to a villa in the city of Arcetri, located near the monastery of his daughters, so quite often he could see his beloved eldest daughter Virginia. The youngest daughter, Livia, did not visit her father, as she was sick.
Death
Due to a short imprisonment in 1633, Galileo Galilei renounced the heliocentric idea and was placed under indefinite arrest: he was placed under house arrest in Arcetri, limiting communication. He was there without a break until the end of his life: on January 8, 1642, Galileo Galilei died.
During the 30s, in Protestant Holland, it was possible to publish the last works of the scientist - "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs Concerning Two New Branches of Science" and "Dialogues".
After the death of Galileo, Catholics did not allow him to bury his ashes in the crypt of the Basilica of Santa Croce, which the scientist himself asked for and desired. Justice won only in 1737 and now the grave of Galileo is located next to the grave of Michelangelo. Even after 20 years, the Catholic Church rehabilitated the heliocentric idea, the error of the Inquisition was recognized only in 1992.
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The Italian scientist who became the greatest of his time, Galileo was the first to use a telescope to study celestial bodies, was a fierce supporter of the heliocentric system, on the proofs of the existence of which he worked for decades. And he gave up his beliefs only under the threat of death.
Families and childhood
Galileo was born into a poor noble family. Biographers know little about the childhood of the future genius, the only thing known for certain is that the family did not have many dishes on the table, but there was always time and desire to study music, since Galileo's father was a lute player and music theorist. In addition to Galileo himself, his parents had five other children, but two died in infancy.
When Galileo was eight, his father gathered the whole family and moved to Florence. The Medici dynasty, which ruled there, helped people of art. This is exactly what Galileo's family hoped for.
As a child, Galileo was fond of art, he also knew how to speak very eloquently and write no less beautifully.
The first basics of science Galileo received in the monastery of Vallombrosa. He was a very diligent student who eventually became the best in the class. After completing his primary education, Galileo decided to choose the path of a priest, but his father opposed and suggested to his son that medicine also helps people.
Therefore, at the age of 17, Galileo entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. But in parallel with the main course, he also began to listen to lectures on geometry. Neither at home nor in the monastery did anyone talk about mathematics, and for Galileo it was a completely new subject. The young man was so immersed in theory that his father began to fear that he would give up medicine.
For three years at the university, Galileo made both friends and enemies among the teachers. The young man, who read a lot and studied a lot, always had his own opinion and did not consider it necessary to hide it. The question arose especially sharply when he became interested in astronomy, especially since at that time the heliocentric theory of Copernicus was very popular, and the situation was aggravated by the calendar reform with the transition to the Gregorian calendar.
Due to financial difficulties, the father could no longer pay for Galileo's studies, and to make an exception for a gifted student to study further for free, the teachers refused - the guy's cool disposition and his previously unrestrained character played a cruel joke. So Galileo came home to Florence in 1585 without any degrees. But, fortunately, his experiments within the walls of the university did not pass by the attention of wealthy nobles. So, a certain Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte remembered the guy who invented the hydraulic balance. The nobleman appreciated the young scientist and made every effort so that at the Medici court he was assigned a scientific scholarship for further experiments.
Four years later, Galileo returned to the University of Pisa as a professor of mathematics and began to conduct his first experiments in mechanics. He lived in poverty, because he received 30 times less salary than his colleagues from the medical faculty. But a year later, his first treatise, On Motion, was ready.
The telescope and the astronomical revolution
In 1892, Galileo moved to the Venetian Republic - he was offered a position as a professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. There he also taught astronomy and mechanics. The recommendation for this post was written by the Doge of Venice himself.
It was in Padua that Galileo began the most fruitful period of his life. Students adore him as a teacher. The government orders new mechanisms all the time. He writes the treatise "Mechanics", which is immediately translated into French. In this work, the scientist for the first time studied the movement of a pendulum and took the first steps in the theory of falling bodies.
In the autumn of 1604, Galileo got a new impetus to the study of astronomy - a phenomenon becomes visible in the sky, which is now called Kepler's Supernova. And Galileo, five years later, makes his first telescope, taking as a basis the spotting scope developed earlier in Holland.
The telescope made it possible to see what no one had even suspected before: the Milky Way turned out to be thousands of individual stars, Galileo saw craters on the Moon, and satellite planets near Jupiter. All these discoveries were described by him in the "Star Herald" - Europe simply shook with delight, the telescope immediately wanted for itself all the rich people of the world. Galileo himself presented several mechanisms to the Senate of Venice, for which he was given the title of professor for life and appointed a huge salary.
Despite the overwhelming success and popularity, Galileo was mired in debt. After the death of his father, he had to support his younger brother and sisters, and also got married. Therefore, Galileo agreed to move to Florence. There he was offered a position as an adviser with a high salary at the duke's court. But Florence is not Venice, where the hands of the Inquisition did not reach ...
Florence and the accusation of heresy
Since Galileo had little to do at court, free time he used for research. He discovered the phases of Venus, spots on the Sun, after which he proved that the luminary rotates around its axis.
Galileo writes down all his discoveries in his characteristic slightly shrill form, for which he was disliked as a student. Now his frivolity has more serious consequences: the fact that he defends the "free-thinking Copernicus", which contradicts the sacred writings, and criticizes the works of Ptolemy and Aristotle, did him no honor in the eyes of the Jesuits.
In 1611, Galileo was received by Pope Paul V, to whom he tried to prove that the church should keep pace with scientific discoveries, for which he even brought his own telescope. At first everything seemed to go well, but then Galileo spoke in a letter about the Holy Scripture, which, as he believed, was not authoritative for science, but good only for the salvation of the soul. He published the same letter himself. Two years later, his work “On Sunspots” was published, where he openly admitted that Copernicus was right.
In early 1615, the Inquisition opened a case against him, accusing him of heresy. A year later, the Vatican declared heliocentrism a dangerous heresy. Officially, Galileo was promised that nothing threatened him if he stopped his ridiculous labors and publicly praised Copernicanism. So he returned to Florence and began to think about how to continue to work so as to be safe. In the end, he decided to take a chance and still publish the book he had been working on for 16 years.
But only in 1631, after more than 30 years, Galileo manages to bypass papal censorship by cunning and publish the Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World. To understand the book more people, it was published not in Latin, but in Italian.
A few months later, the book was confiscated, and Galileo was summoned to Rome for a meeting of the court of the Inquisition. After three months of investigation, Galileo faced a choice: either give up his thoughts, or share the fate of Giordano Bruno. And Galileo refused.
He spent the rest of his life in a villa under constant supervision. He died at the age of 78. The Pope himself forbade him to be buried in the family crypt. Only in 1737 his remains were reburied in the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to Michelangelo.
- In 1758, Pope Benedict XIV ordered that works advocating heliocentrism be struck out of the Index of Forbidden Books; however, this work was carried out slowly and was completed only in 1835.
- From 1979 to 1981, at the initiative of Pope John Paul II, a commission for the rehabilitation of Galileo worked, and on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II officially recognized that the Inquisition had made a mistake in 1633, forcing the scientist to renounce the theory of Copernicus by force.
- Galileo is rightfully considered the founder of not only experimental, but - to a large extent - theoretical physics.
- With regard to the philosophy of nature, Galileo was a staunch rationalist. He believed that the laws of nature are comprehensible to the human mind.
Fortunately, the fires of the Inquisition had already died down in Europe at that time, and the scientist escaped with only the status of a "prisoner of the Holy Inquisition."
short biography
Galileo Galilei (November 15, 1564 - January 8, 1642) went down in history as a brilliant astronomer and physicist. He is recognized as the founder of exact natural science.
Being a native of the Italian city of Pisa, he received his education there - at the famous University of Pisa, studying in the medical specialty. However, after reading the works of Euclid and Archimedes, the future scientist became so interested in mechanics and geometry that he immediately decided to leave the university, devoting his entire future life to the natural sciences.
In 1589 Galileo became a professor at the University of Pisa. A few more years later, he began working at the University of Padua, where he remained until 1610. He continued his further work as a court philosopher of Duke Cosimo II de' Medici, continuing to engage in research in the field of physics, geometry and astronomy.
Discoveries and legacy
His main discoveries are two principles of mechanics, which had a significant impact on the development of not only mechanics itself, but also physics as a whole. We are talking about the fundamental Galilean principle of relativity for uniform and rectilinear motion, as well as the principle of constancy of the acceleration of gravity.
On the basis of the principle of relativity discovered by him, I. Newton created such a concept as an inertial frame of reference. The second principle helped him develop the concepts of inert and heavy masses.
Einstein, on the other hand, was able to develop the mechanical principle of Galileo to all physical processes, primarily to light, drawing conclusions about the nature and laws of time and space. And by combining the second Galilean principle, which he interpreted as the principle of the equivalence of inertial forces to gravitational forces, with the first he created general theory relativity.
In addition to these two principles, Galileo owns the discovery of such laws:
Constant oscillation period;
Addition of movements;
inertia;
free fall;
Movement of the body on an inclined plane;
Movement of a body thrown at an angle.
In addition to these basic fundamental discoveries, the scientist was engaged in the invention and design of various applied devices. So, in 1609, using convex and concave lenses, he created a device that is an optical system - an analogue of a modern telescope. With the help of this hand-made device, he began to explore the night sky. And he was very successful in this, finalizing the device in practice and making a full-fledged telescope for that time.
Thanks to his own invention, Galileo soon managed to discover the phases of Venus, sunspots, and more. others
However, the inquisitive mind of the scientist did not stop at the successful use of the telescope. In 1610, after experimenting and changing the distances between the lenses, he also invented the opposite version of the telescope - the microscope. The role of these two instruments for modern science cannot be overestimated. He also invented the thermoscope (1592), an analogue of the modern thermometer. As well as many other useful devices and devices.
The astronomical discoveries of the scientist significantly influenced the scientific worldview in general. In particular, his conclusions and justifications resolved the long disputes between supporters of the teachings of Copernicus and supporters of the systems developed by Ptolemy and Aristotle. These obvious arguments showed that the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic systems were erroneous.
True, after such overwhelming evidence (1633), the scientist was immediately rushed to be recognized as a heretic. Fortunately, the fires of the Inquisition had already died down in Europe at that time, and Galileo got off only with the status of a “prisoner of the Holy Inquisition”, a ban on working in Rome (after and in Florence, as well as around it), as well as constant supervision of himself. But the scientist continued to be relatively active. And before the illness that caused the loss of vision, he managed to complete another of his well-known works, "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs Concerning Two New Branches of Science" (1637).
Italy is the birthplace of the scientist. Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, into an aristocratic family. Vincenzo Galilei, his father, played the lute and wrote scholarly articles on music. Mother, Giulia Ammanati, was a housewife. The family became poorer over time. There is little information about his early childhood. In addition to Galileo, two more sisters (Virginia and Livia) and a younger brother (Michelangelo) grew up in the family. Galileo from an early age showed versatile talents: for drawing, literature, music, mechanics. He was interested in the arrangement of things. In 1572 the family was looking for a better life moved to Florence, where science and art were revered, thanks to the influence of the Medici. Galileo received his primary education at the Benedictine monastery of Vallombrosa, where he became a novice. The young man was considered the best student in the class, but his father did not want to see his son as a priest.Galileo's education and first fame
In 1581 (at the age of 17) he returned to his native city of Pisa and entered the medical faculty of the university. There, young Galileo became interested in mathematics, which he had not deeply studied before. It turned out she attracted him more than medicine. He plunged headlong into the study of the works of Archimedes, Euclid. Copernicus also influenced the formation of the type of his worldview. The father had to come to terms with the change of the medical faculty to the philosophical one. Although Galileo Galilei mastered new knowledge easily, not all teachers complained about him, as he liked to defend his point of view, regardless of personalities and authorities. . Perhaps that is why he was not allowed to complete his studies for free (his father ran out of money). Although there was such a practice: capable students were given the opportunity to finish their studies at the expense of the university.
Padua
After the death of his father in 1591, Galileo had to provide for his family. Since he was paid little in Pisa, in 1592 he moved to Padua and became a teacher of the exact sciences (the Doge of Venice took care of him). Galileo was an authoritative scientist before, but the period of life in this ancient city is the most active. He wrote scientific papers, invented and designed instruments, made discoveries in astronomy. There have also been changes on the personal front. He began to live with Marina Gamba, a native of Venice, without formalizing the relationship. They had three children (a son and 2 daughters).
Florence
In 1610, due to lack of money, the family moved to Florence, where Galileo was promised a good income at the court of the Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II. He was listed as a university professor in Pisa, but actually taught the Duke's offspring the sciences and played the role of a court adviser.Relations with the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has long been “grinding a tooth at him” for scientific views, because he impudently refuted the teachings of Aristotle. After the creation of the telescope, the scientist watched the celestial bodies with might and main, and each time he was convinced that Copernicus was right. Modern man has no doubt that the Earth is round and the planets revolve around the Sun. And then the view solar system through the eyes of Copernicus and Galileo caused shock among ordinary citizens. Galileo thoroughly angered the clergy when he proved the veracity of the heliocentric system, and after all, many religious postulates asserted that the Earth is static, and the Sun moves around it. The inventor had great authority in the world of science. Therefore, I decided that this fact and a sharp mind would help convince the Pope that such views did not undermine at all. Galileo went to Rome, where he was favorably received, the telescope was tested, but when he began to insist on the veracity of the heliocentric system, the saints rebelled. The country in those days was subordinated to the powerful Catholic Church, which influenced everything. By his appeal to Castelli (follower), where he proved his case regarding religion and his worldview, Galileo provoked the Inquisition to start persecuting him. Denunciations have become more frequent. And the Letters on Sunspots, where he defended the Copernican system, gave rise to a case.
Important! In 1616, the experts of the Inquisition issued a verdict that heliocentrism is heresy. The scientist himself has not yet been touched, but the teaching has been banned.Galileo had strong patrons, but the execution, which took place not so long ago, cooled his ardor. Long years he worked on a work in which he tried to defend his positions without incurring the wrath of the church. The next Pope, Urban VIII, was a longtime friend of his, and Galileo approached him in hopes of rescinding the decree. The Pope received him in a friendly manner, but did not share his ideas. When, in 1632, the scholar published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Systems of the World, the Inquisition took up again. The published book was soon seized, and Galileo was ordered to go to Rome. He felt bad, but he had to go, otherwise he would have been pulled in shackles. There were interrogations, investigation, possibly torture, imprisonment. As a result, the scientist was declared “highly suspected of heresy” and imprisoned for an indefinite period. After some time, his punishment was mitigated, given his advanced age and friendship with the Pope, Archbishop Piccolomini, and he was allowed to live in the Medici estate. And then they let him live out his life in Archetri, where his daughters served in the monastery.The Inquisition was vigilantly watching him, not allowing him to receive guests and travel to the city.
The last years of the scientist
Galileo fell into despondency after the death of his daughter Virginia, who looked after him, his health deteriorated significantly. The onset of depression and loss of vision crippled the scientist, but he could not give up science, although he was engaged in it within the limits permitted by the Inquisition. His last opus was Conversations and Mathematical Proofs of Two New Sciences. He appeared in Holland, without the knowledge of the church. 01/08/1642 Galileo Galilei died at the age of 78. He was buried in Arcetri without fuss by order of the Papal Throne, although according to the will, the last resting place for the remains of the scientist was to be a crypt in the Basilica of Santa Croce, where his whole family rested. Almost 100 years later, his remains were transferred to the basilica and buried next to.But the Papacy officially admitted its mistake only in 1992.
inventions
Even as a child, Galileo was fascinated by mechanics, he tried to figure out how objects are arranged, thanks to which they function. The scientist designed models of mechanisms, and they were active:- Hydrostatic balancebecame the first invention. They were intended to determine the center of gravity and density of solids, to determine the composition of metal alloys. In 1586, Galileo described the principle of their operation and purpose in the essay “Little Scales”, thanks to which he became famous in scientific circles. It was after this first glory that the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte began to patronize him.
- Thermometeralso considered an invention of Galileo (“thermoscope”, 1592). The thermometer looked like a small ball of glass with a soldered transparent tube, which was immersed in a liquid. When the air in the balloon was warmed up (by the warmth of the hands or a burner), the air displaced the liquid in the tube. As the temperature increased, the liquid level decreased. The thinner the tube, the more accurately slight temperature rises could be seen. It is believed that this device later continued to develop Fernando de' Medici (student).
- Telescopeis one of Galileo's most famous inventions. Although the “spotting” telescope was used before, it was the scientist who began to study celestial bodies with the help of it. He owes his astronomical discoveries to the telescope, and to the subsequent persecution of the Inquisition as well. The telescope was a 3x (later he did 32x) instrument with a convex objective and a concave eyepiece. With his help, he examined and described the visible side of the Moon, discovered the satellites of Jupiter (4 of them), as well as the fact that the Milky Way is separate stars. He also assured that our planet, like others, make revolutions around the Sun. The scientist discovered and described blackouts on the surface of the daylight, which he later outlined in his treatise. Galileo found out that and are located closer to the Sun than our planet, considered the rings and. The scientist learned that the Sun and the Earth revolve around their own axis, the satellites revolve around their planets, and the planets revolve around the Sun. Observations of the universe finally convinced Galileo of the correctness of the Copernican point of view.
- Microscope construction(“little eye”) is also attributed to Galileo. It consisted of a convex and a concave lens. Although the device did not give a multiple reduction, the scientist successfully examined insects with it. He showed his discovery at the Accademia dei Lincei.
- Compasslike a new invention of a scientist was introduced to the scientific community in 1606. Movable legs with a center of rotation made it possible to change the scale of objects, which began to be used in architecture and when creating drawings.
Achievements in the Sciences
Galileo Galilei was such a brilliant scientist that he left behind a significant mark in various branches of science.Physics
He was the founder of experimental physics. The significance of his discoveries cannot be overestimated. He owns 2 principles of mechanics:- relativityfor uniform and rectilinear movement;
- constancyacceleration of gravity.
Important! The calculation of the pendulum oscillation formula was later used to create pendulum clocks.
Maths
Galileo successfully applied knowledge of mathematics in other sciences. In addition, he presented his interesting conclusions about the theory of probability in the work “Reasoning about the game of dice”. Also, the scientist in "Conversations on Two New Sciences" outlined his research and calculations on the topic of natural numbers and their squares.
Philosophy and worldview
In short, his main ideas about the vision of the world are that it exists independently of our consciousness. Matter is permanent and the universe is infinite. In the world around us, nothing disappears and nothing appears out of nowhere. There are simply changes in the state of natural objects or their components. Matter that is in constant motion is a complex of atoms that are indivisible. And all movements in nature, space, obey the laws of mechanics. According to Galileo, the goal of science is to find the causes of natural phenomena. Observations and experience are the basis of knowledge.Many of his discoveries came to light only due to the fact that he relied on his own experiences, observations, experiments, and not on dogmas established by recognized authorities. Galileo considered true philosophers to be those who “study the book of nature” themselves, and did not memorize what the recognized “luminaries” of science claimed.Important! Despite his progressive scientific knowledge and discoveries, Galileo was an obedient Catholic and yet allowed a divine principle in the cause of things. He made a clear distinction between faith and science.His thoughts and research were set forth in numerous writings, treatises, letters to colleagues, friends and patrons. They emphasize his undoubted literary gift. He wrote in Italian, although he knew Latin very well. The scientist expressed his thoughts so clearly and accessible, he could write clearly and intelligibly, that his scientific works can be considered literary works. Galileo Galilei can rightly be considered responsible for the birth of modern science. Remaining a devoted Catholic, he nevertheless defended his point of view until his death and issued many works that were taken as a basis by other scientists of the following centuries. This gave a great impetus to the development of all branches of science. Galileo Galilei is admired all over the world not only as one of the most smart people of his time, but also as one of the most daring. Much more interesting facts from the biography of Galileo Galilei, find out from the video below.
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa to the musician Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati. In 1572 he moved with his family to Florence. In 1581 he began to study medicine at the University of Pisa. One of Galileo's teachers, Ostilio Ricci, supported the young man in his passion for mathematics and physics, which affected the further fate of the scientist.
Galileo was unable to graduate from the university due to his father's financial difficulties and was forced to return to Florence, where he continued to study science. In 1586, he completed work on the treatise "Little Scales", in which (following Archimedes) he described the device he invented for hydrostatic weighing, and in the next work he gave a number of theorems regarding the center of gravity of paraboloids of revolution. Assessing the growth of the scientist's reputation, the Florentine Academy chose him as an arbitrator in a dispute about how the topography of Dante's Hell (1588) should be interpreted from a mathematical point of view. Thanks to the assistance of his friend the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, Galileo received an honorary but meagerly paid position as professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa.
The death of his father in 1591 and the extreme constraint of his financial situation forced Galileo to look for a new job. In 1592 he received the chair of mathematics in Padua (in the possession of the Venetian Republic). After spending eighteen years here, Galileo Galilei made the discovery of the quadratic dependence of the fall path on time, established the parabolic trajectory of the projectile, and also made many other equally important discoveries.
In 1609, Galileo Galilei, modeled on the first Dutch telescopes, made his own telescope, capable of creating a threefold zoom, and then designed a telescope with a thirtyfold zoom, magnifying one thousand times. Galileo was the first person to point a telescope at the sky; what was seen there meant a real revolution in the concept of space: the Moon turned out to be covered with mountains and depressions (previously the surface of the Moon was considered smooth), the Milky Way - consisting of stars (according to Aristotle - this is a fiery evaporation like a comet tail), Jupiter - surrounded by four satellites (their rotation around Jupiter was an obvious analogy to the rotation of the planets around the Sun). Galileo later added to these observations the discovery of the phases of Venus and sunspots. He published the results in a book that was published in 1610 under the title The Starry Herald. The book brought Galileo European fame. The well-known mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler enthusiastically responded to it, the monarchs and the higher clergy showed great interest in the discoveries of Galileo. With their help, he received a new, more honorable and secure position - the post of court mathematician of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1611, Galileo visited Rome, where he was admitted to the scientific "Academy dei Lincei".
In 1613, he published a work on sunspots, in which he spoke for the first time quite definitely in favor of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.
However, to proclaim this in Italy at the beginning of the 17th century meant to repeat the fate of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake. The central point of the controversy that arose was the question of how to combine facts proven by science with passages from the Holy Scriptures that contradict them. Galileo believed that in such cases the biblical story should be understood allegorically. The church attacked the theory of Copernicus, whose book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543), more than half a century after its publication, was on the list of banned publications. A decree to this effect appeared in March 1616, and a month earlier, the chief theologian of the Vatican, Cardinal Bellarmine, suggested to Galileo that he no longer defend Copernicanism. In 1623, Galileo's friend and patron Maffeo Barberini became pope under the name of Urban VIII. At the same time, the scientist published his new work - "Assay Master", which examines the nature of physical reality and methods for studying it. It was here that the famous saying of the scientist appeared: "The Book of Nature is written in the language of mathematics."
In 1632, Galileo's book "Dialogue on the Two Systems of the World, Ptolemaic and Copernican" was published, which was soon banned by the Inquisition, and the scientist himself was summoned to Rome, where he was awaited by the court. In 1633, the scientist was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was replaced by house arrest, last years he spent his life without a break in his estate Arcetri near Florence. The circumstances of the case are still unclear. Galileo was accused not just of defending the theory of Copernicus (such an accusation is legally untenable, since the book passed papal censorship), but of violating an earlier ban from 1616 "not to discuss" this theory in any form.
In 1638, Galileo published in Holland, in the Elsevier publishing house, his new book"Conversations and Mathematical Proofs", where in a more mathematical and academic form he expressed his thoughts on the laws of mechanics, and the range of problems considered was very wide - from statics and resistance of materials to the laws of motion of a pendulum and the laws of fall. Until his death, Galileo did not stop active creative activity: tried to use the pendulum as the main element of the clock mechanism (followed by Christian Huygens soon), a few months before he became completely blind, he discovered the vibration of the moon, and, already completely blind, dictated the last thoughts regarding the theory of impact to his students - Vincenzo Viviani and Evangelista Torricelli.
In addition to his great discoveries in astronomy and physics, Galileo went down in history as the creator of modern method experimentation. His idea was that in order to study a particular phenomenon, we must create some ideal world (he called it al mondo di carta - "the world on paper"), in which this phenomenon would be maximally freed from extraneous influences. This ideal world is further the object of a mathematical description, and its conclusions are compared with the results of an experiment in which the conditions are as close as possible to ideal ones.
Galileo died at Arcetri on January 8, 1642, after a debilitating fever. In his will, he asked to be buried in the family tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce (Florence), but due to fears of opposition from the church, this was not done. The last will of the scientist was fulfilled only in 1737, his ashes were transported from Arcetri to Florence and buried with honors in the church of Santa Croce next to Michelangelo.
In 1758, the Catholic Church lifted the ban on most works supporting the theory of Copernicus, and in 1835 excluded On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres from the index of banned books. In 1992, Pope John Paul II officially acknowledged that the church had made a mistake by condemning Galileo in 1633.
Galileo Galilei had three children born out of wedlock to the Venetian Marina Gamba. Only the son of Vincenzo, who later became a musician, was recognized by the astronomer as his own in 1619. His daughters, Virginia and Livia, were sent to a convent.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources