90
GALILEO GALILEI (1564-1642) The astronomer who discovered the language of the universe
Referred to as “the father of modern science” by Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei is best known as the first scientist ever to use a telescope to observe the sky. But he was not only an astronomer; he was also a mathematician, a philosopher, and a physicist who invented new methods and instruments to make discoveries. Born in Pisa in 1563, Galileo moved to Florence with his family when he was 8 years old. At his father’s urging, he went on to study medicine at the University of Pisa, but later convinced his father to let him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead. Although he left university in 1585 without earning a degree, he studied on his own. He invented a hydrostatic balance and published a small book, drawing the interest and attention of the scholarly world. Galileo was later hired back at the University of Pisa to teach mathematics, where he completed the famous free fall experiment from the top the Pisa tower. In 1592, to earn a higher pay, he moved to the Venetian Republic to teach geometry, mechanics and astronomy at the University of Padua. Becoming “father of science” - the starry messenger In his 18 years in the university world, Galileo invented the air thermometer, the proportional compass, and improved the telescope in 1609 with 8x magnification. Later, he achieved 20x magnification of the telescope, which he then used to study the sky. He discovered that the moon was not a perfectly smooth and translucent sphere as previously believed, but instead had
GALILEO IN PRISON
1878 engraving, Carlo Piloty, 1826-1886
