| Patriotic Quotes
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. What pity is it That we can die, but once to serve our country. Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. |
Galileo Galilei Posters
Galileo Galilei: Scientist
Born: 15 Feb 1564 in Pisa (now in Italy)
Died: 8 Jan 1642 in Arcetri (near Florence) (now in Italy)
 Galileo Galilei 18.00x24.00in. Poster |
 Crescent Moon, Galileo Spacecraft - Dec. 1999 15.75x19.75in. Poster |
 Galileo: The Red Spot Chart 36.00x24.00in. Print |
Born February 15 1564 in Pisa, in a declining family of Florentine
patricians. In 1581 he was sent to study medicine at the University of Pisa,
but never showed much interest in the subject and starting in 1583 devoted
himself exclusively to mathematics and philosophy. He left Pisa without a
degree, yet in July 1589 he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at
that same university. In 1592 he took on the prestigious chair of
mathematics at the university of Padua.
Prior to 1609, Galileo had only shown passing interest in astronomical
matters, despites privately presenting himself as a Copernican. His research
while at Pisa and Padua was mostly concerned with the problem of motion, in
particular motion on inclined planes, of the pendulum, and of freely falling
bodies. First little known outside of Italy, Galileo's telescopic discovery
in 1609 and 1610 instantly propelled him into international fame, and won
him a position at the Florentine Court, as chief mathematician and
philosopher to the Grand Duke of Tucsany, Cosimo de Medici II.
Galileo's telescopic discoveries, published in his landmark 1610 book
Sidereus Nuncius shook the very foundations of the Ptolemaic/Aristotelian
cosmology. His observations of the Moon's surface revealed valleys and
mountains, instead of the smooth perfectly spherical surface postulated by
Aristotle. His observations of multitudes of faint stars gave some credence
to Copernicus' suggestion that the universe may be a lot larger than
hitherto believed. Perhaps his most striking discovery was that of four
moons orbiting Jupiter, in direct contradiction with another Aristotelian
postulate, that of the Earth being the center of (circular) motion for all
heavenly bodies.
In the following two years Galileo made two new sets of observations that
would further undermine the prevailing Aristotelian/Ptolemaic cosmology. The
first was the observation of the phases of Venus, and the second the
observation of sunspots. Galileo published his views on the latter in his
Three Letters to Mark Wesler, in response to the three letters written
earlier by Christoph Scheiner to the same Wesler. Controversy over the
priority of discovery of sunspots would later turn Scheiner and Galileo into
bitter enemies.
Following the 1616 decree suspending for revision Copernicus' De
Revolutionibus and an injunction by Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino not to hold
or defend the Copernican doctrine, Galileo turned to the problem of the
tides, hoping in doing to to provide a proof of the motion of the Earth.
Galileo's pro-Copernican campaign culminated with the publication of his
1632 Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems. The Roman ecclesiastic
authorities considered the book to violate the 1616 decree. In September
1632 Galileo was summoned to Rome by the Inquisition and was put on trial.
On June 22 1633 Galileo was forced to kneel in front of the Roman
Inquisition and recant his beliefs in the Copernican doctrine and the motion
of the Earth. He was then sentenced to life imprisonment, which was almost
immediately commuted to perpetual house arrest without visitors, ostensibly
for having disobeyed a 1616 injunction by Cardinal Bellarmine "...not to
defend or teach the Copernican doctrine...". Galileo's Dialogue was put on
the Index of Prohibited Books, as well as Copernicus' De Revolutionibus and
the books of Kepler dealing with planetary theory.
Galileo's sentence was upheld rather rigidly despites numerous appeals to
the Inquisition and the Pope by Galileo himself, as well as numerous
prominent scientists and statesmen in Italy and Europe. After Galileo became
blind in 1637, the enforcement of his sentence was relaxed somewhat, and he
was allowed to receive visitors for extended periods of time. In 1638 he
completed yet another landmark work, Discourses on Two New Sciences provided
the foundations for the modern science of mechanics. The manuscript was
smuggled out of Italy and the book published in Holland.
Galileo died on the evening of January 8, 1642. The Roman ecclesiastic
authorities vetoed the public funeral and honor planned by the Florentine
state. His books, together with those of Copernicus and Kepler, were removed
from the Index in 1835, and only in 1992 did the Roman catholic Church
formally admitted to having erred in dealing with Galileo.