Galileo Galilei Biography
The great Italian physicist and astronomer, had to face an inquisition to defend the new theories about the universe.
The great Italian physicist and astronomer, had to face an inquisition to defend the new theories about the universe.
The scientific revolution of the Renaissance began in Copernican heliocentrism and its culmination, a century later, in Newtonian mechanics. His most eminent representative, however, was the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. In the field of physics, Galileo made the first laws of motion; in astronomy, he confirmed the Copernican theory with its telescopic observations. But none of these valuable contributions have far reaching consequences such as the introduction of the experimental methodology, an achievement that has earned the consideration of the father of modern science.
On the other hand, the Inquisition that Galileo heliocentric defense was submitted eventually raising his figure to the status symbol in the grave error committed by the ecclesiastical authorities wanted to see the final break between science and religion, and despite the result of the process, the triumph of reason over the medieval obscurantism. Similarly, joined him famous after the forced retraction (Eppur if muove, "and yet the earth moves") has become the emblem of the unstoppable force of truth to any form of dogmatism established.
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa on 15 February 1564. What little is known of his mother, Giulia Ammannati through letters, di Pescia, not too flattering composed figure. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a Florentine and came from a family that had long been distinguished; musician forced vocation, economic difficulties to participate in trade, profession led him to settle in Pisa. Man of broad humanistic culture, was an accomplished artist and a composer and music theorist; his work on music theory enjoyed a certain notoriety at the time.
Galileo had to inherit not only taste in music (playing the lute), but also the character and spirit of independent struggle, and perhaps contempt for blind trust in authority and taste by combining theory with practice . Galileo was the eldest of seven children of whom three (Virginia, Michelangelo and Livia) will end up contributing, over time, to increase its economic problems. In 1574, the family moved to Florence, Galileo was sent a while the monastery of Santa Maria di Vallombrosa, as a student, or perhaps as a rookie.
Academic Youth
In 1581 Galileo entered the University of Pisa, where he enrolled as a medical student by the will of his father. Four years later, however, he left the university without obtaining no title, but with a good knowledge of Aristotle. Meanwhile, there had been a determining factor in his life: his initiation into mathematics (apart from college) and the consequent loss of interest in his career as a doctor.
Back in Florence in 1585, Galileo spent several years devoted to the study of mathematics, but also interested in philosophy and literature, which showed preferences ahead Ariosto Tasso; the dates of their first time in the center of gravity of bodies (which then recover in 1638, as an appendix would be his main scientific work) and the invention of a hydrostatic balance to determine specific weights two Contributions in the line of Archimedes, Galileo who would not hesitate to describe as "superhuman".
After a bit of tutoring in mathematics in Florence and Siena, he tried to get a regular job at the universities of Bologna, Padua and Florence itself. In 1589 he finally got a place in the Pisa study, where dissatisfaction with the salary received impoverished could not but manifest itself in a satirical poem against academic gown. In Pisa, Galileo wrote a text on the movement remained unpublished, in which, on the inside, even in the context of medieval mechanics, criticized the Aristotelian explanation of falling bodies and projectile motion.
The experimental method
In continuity with this review, a certain historiographical tradition has shaped the history (now generally considered unlikely) Galileo materially refuting Aristotle through the process of launching various weights from the top of the Campanile of Pisa, before looks dissatisfied with the Peripatetic . Nearly two thousand years ago, Aristotle argued that heavy bodies fall faster; According to this legend, Galileo would have demonstrated the falsity of this concept with the simple procedure to simultaneously bodies of different weights fall from the top of the tower and see that everyone came to earth at the same time.
If true, the birth of modern scientific methodology might dated in the episode of the Tower of Pisa. And, in times of Galileo, science was essentially speculative. The ideas and theories of the great sages of antiquity and the Fathers of the Church, and any concept mentioned in the Scriptures, were revered as definitive and immutable truths that could add some more annotations and comments, or abstract speculation not alter its substance. Aristotle, for example, had distinguished between natural motion (stones fall to the ground, as is its natural place, and smoke, being hot, the sun rises) violent (like an arrow shot into the sky, which is its natural place); scholars of Galileo's time were devoted to reason about as barren as this, scores of seeking a useless conceptual refinement.
Instead, Galileo is based on the observation of facts, subjecting them to measurable conditions and controlled experiments. It is probably true that drop the weights of the Tower of Pisa; but it is very true that built a sloping six meters long (straightening to reduce friction) and a water clock that measures the speed of falling flat balls. Observation hypothesis that emerged was confirmed in new experiments and mathematically formulated as universally valid laws, since, according to him a concept known as "the book of nature is written in mathematical language." With this approach, natural today and then new and scandalous (by questioning ideas and universally recognized authority of scholars and doctors), Galileo inaugurated the methodological revolution that has earned him the title "father of modern science ".
The sweet years in Padua (1592-1610)
The death of his father in 1591 meant for Galileo obligation to take responsibility for his family and the care of the dowry of his sister Virginia. They began a series of economic difficulties would not have more aggravated in subsequent years; in 1601 he had to give the dowry of his sister Livia without the help of his brother Miguel Angel, who had gone to Poland with money that Galileo had lent him and never gave (later, Michelangelo was established in Germany thanks again the help of his brother, and then sent to live with him in his family).
The need for money at that time was increased by the birth of three sons of Galileo himself: Virginia (1600), Livia (1601) and Vincenzo (1606), fell from his marriage with Marina Gamba, which lasted 1599-1610 and who He not married. This made small enough improvement achieved by Galileo in his remuneration elected in 1592 to the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua by the Venetian authorities who run it. There was an appeal to tutorials, progress and even loans. Nevertheless, stay in Padua Galileo, which lasted until 1610, was the most creative, intense and so happy its lifetime.
In Padua Galileo had occasion accordance with technical issues such as military architecture, castrametacion, topography and other related issues discussed in their lessons. Then I also went several inventions, like a machine to raise water, thermoscope and mechanical calculation procedure set out in its first printed work: the operations of the geometric and military compass (1606). Initially designed to solve a practical problem of artillery, the instrument did not hesitate to be perfected by Galileo, which expanded its use in solving many other problems. The usefulness of the device, while he had not yet logarithms allowed to earn some income through their manufacturing and marketing.
In 1602 Galileo resumed his studies on the movement, focusing on the isochronism of the pendulum and the displacement along a slope, in order to establish what the law of falling bodies. It was then, and until 1609, when he developed the ideas that thirty years later would form the core of his speeches and mathematical demonstrations on two new sciences (1638), a work that sums up his splendid contribution to physics.
The astronomical discoveries
In July 1609, visiting Venice (to ask for a raise), Galileo learned of a new optical instrument that a Dutchman had presented to Prince Maurice of Nassau; It was the telescope, Galileo whose practical importance caught immediately, devoting their efforts to improve to be a real telescope. But he said that after having succeeded in the development of devices with theoretical considerations on optical principles were based, is likely to make it through the practice of successive attempts to, at most, they relied on a Very briefly reasoning.
Either way, his undeniable merit was that it was the first that was right at the scientific instrument take decisive advantage. Between December 1609 and January 1610, with his telescope Galileo made the first observations of the Moon, playing what he saw as proof of the existence in our mountains and craters showing satellite community of nature with Earth. traditional Aristotelian thesis about the perfection of the celestial world, which requires the full roundness of the stars, put into question.
The discovery of four moons of Jupiter contradicted, moreover, the principle that the land had to be the center of all the movements that occur in the sky. In late 1610, Galileo observed that Venus had phases like moles, made interpreted as an empirical confirmation of the heliocentric system of Copernicus, as this, and not the geocentric of Ptolemy, was able to provide an explanation for the phenomenon.
Eager to see their discoveries, Galileo hastily wrote a short text which was published in March 1610 and did not hesitate to make him famous throughout Europe: the Sidereal Messenger. Its original title, Sidereus Nuncius, means' sidereal nuncio "or" Messenger of the Stars', but is also compatible with the translation "sidereal message '. The latter is the sense that Galileo, years later, said he had in . account when the arrogance of the powers of the heavenly condition Ambassador criticized Praise Italian and Venetian dialect did the work Tommaso Campanella wrote from his prison in Naples. "After his Nuncio, oh Galileo, must be renewed every science." Kepler, suspicious at first, then realized all the benefits derived from using a good telescope, and also managed to get hooked to the wonderful news.
The book was dedicated to the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II de 'Medici, and in his honor, the satellites of Jupiter were there "Medicean planets' name. The Galileo secured his appointment as mathematician and philosopher of the Court of Tuscany and the possibility of returning to Florence, who had been struggling for several years. The work included an Honorary President in Pisa, without teaching duties, so the hope long coat was fulfilled and he did prefer an absolute to a republic as monarch of Venice, because, as he wrote, "it is impossible to get any payment a Republic, splendid and generous it may be, that makes no obligation; Since, to get some of the public, we must satisfy the public. "
However, accepting these perks was not a risk free decision as Galileo knew that the power of the Inquisition, in the Republic of Venice, was significantly greater in the Tuscan country. In several letters he had left unmistakable evidence that the review of the overall structure of the sky had taken him to the same conclusions as Copernicus and frontally reject the Ptolemaic system, or to defend against heliocentrism existing exclusionary. Unfortunately, around the same time such ideas also refer to the Inquisitors, but defended the opposite solution and began to find Copernicus suspected of heresy.
The Battle of Copernicasm
In September 1610, Galileo was founded in Florence, where, except for brief stays in other Italian cities, had to spend the last stage of his life. In 1611 a German Jesuit, Christoph Scheiner, published under the pseudonym of a book on sunspots had been discovered in his comments. Almost simultaneously with Galileo, which had already seen before, he made them see several characters during his stay in Rome, during a trip that was described as triumphant, which served, among other things, as Federico Cesi member of Indeed the Accademia dei Lincei, own Cesi founded in 1603 and was the first scientific society of lasting importance.
Under its auspices the history and demonstrations in sunspots and accidents, where Galileo stepped out of the interpretation of Scheiner, who claims that the stains were an extrasolar phenomenon ("star" near the Sun that stood between it and the Earth ) was published in 1613. The text triggered a controversy over priority in the discovery that lasted for years and made the Jesuit one of the fiercest enemies of Galileo, which has no impact on the process followed to the Inquisition . Moreover, it was there for the first and only time, Galileo gave the press a clear proof of its commitment to the Copernican astronomy, which had already announced in a letter to Kepler in 1597.
Opponents attacks against academics and the first signs that their views could have consequences in conflict with the ecclesiastical authority, the position taken by Galileo was the Defender (in various writings, including the letter to Mrs. Cristina de Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 1615) that, even accepting that there could be no contradiction between science and Scripture was a need for absolute independence between the Catholic faith and scientific facts. Now however, as noted by the Cardinal Bellarmine, it could be said that the availability of conclusive scientific evidence in favor of the motion of the Earth, who also was at odds with biblical teaching; as a result, it could not be but to understand the Copernican system as hypothetical.
Galileo before the Inquisition
In 1616 Galileo was sued for the first time in Rome to answer the charges against him, a battle that was without fear, assuming a favorable resolution of the Church since. The astronomer was initially received with great respect in the city; But as the discussion progressed, it was clear leaving the inquisitors not to budge or willing to follow the Pisan brilliant arguments. On the contrary, this episode seemed definitely convince the urgency of including the work of Copernicus in the index of forbidden books: the February 23, 1616 the Holy Office condemned the Copernican system as "false and opposed to the Scriptures," and Galileo he received the admonition not to publicly teach the theories of Copernicus.
Aware that he had no evidence that Belarmino said, despite their astronomical discoveries leave no doubt about the truth of Copernicus, Galileo took refuge for several years in Florence in calculating the tables of the motions of the satellites of Jupiter , intended to establish a new method for calculating lengths offshore method tried in vain to sell the Spanish Government and the Dutch.
In 1618 he became embroiled in a new controversy with another Jesuit Orazio Grassi, regarding the nature of comets and the incorruptibility of heaven. That controversy led to a text, the assayer (1623), rich in reflections on the nature of science and the scientific method, which contains his famous notion that "the book of nature is written in mathematical language." The book, published by the Accademia dei Lincei, had been dedicated by the new Pope Urban VIII, ie, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, whose election as pontiff overjoyed to civilized world in general and in particular Galileo, whom the Cardinal had shown his affection.
The new situation encouraged Galileo to write the great work of the Copernican cosmology exposure already announced many years ago: the dialogue on a maximum of two systems in the world (1632); in it, the Aristotelian views defended by Simplicio face the new astronomy by Salviati, in the form of dialogue moderated by men of good Sagredo, who wanted to form an accurate judgment of the precise terms in which the dispute unfolded.
The job might not be up to the demands expressed by Bellarmine, as it brought as evidence of the movement of the earth, a false explanation of the tides, and even pretended resorting to dialogue to take a point of seemingly neutral view, the inferiority Salviati Simplicio (and therefore the Ptolemaic system against Copernicus) was so manifest that the Holy Office did not hesitate to open a process to Galileo Despite the fact that this was achieved imprimatur to publish the book in 1632.
The final sentence
Interpretation of the publication of dialogue as an act of disrespect to the prohibition of disclosure Copernicanism, longstanding opponents claimed again in Rome, now in less diplomatic terms, so their ideas respond to the Holy Office in a process that began 12 April 1633. Old and Wise Galileo, its almost seventy years old, he was subjected to humiliating and laborious questioning which lasted twenty days, to no avail some inquisitors who rated their book "abhorrent and more pernicious to the Church of the writings of Luther and Calvin "closed mind, ruthlessly and without possible appeal.
Convicted despite the resignation of Galileo to defend itself and its formal withdrawal, which was forced to pronounce the abjuration of his doctrine knees and sentenced to life imprisonment. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems entered the index of forbidden books and did not leave him until 1728. According to a pious tradition, as well known as doubtful, pride and stubbornness astronomer led him, after his humiliating resignation to believe in what he thought, beating vigorously with his foot on the floor and before his pursuers to pronounce: "And yet it moves" (Eppur if muove, referring to the Earth). However, many of his coreligionists did not forgive cowardice of his recantation, attitude embittered the last years of his life, along with ostracism was wrongly convicted.
The sentence was softened so you can join him in his fifth Arcetri, near the convent, he had come to her dearest daughter, Virginia, who died in 1634. On his retirement in 1616 and the name Sister Maria Celeste where moral distress joined the blindness and arthritis, Galileo managed to complete the last and most important of his works: Discourses and mathematical demonstrations on two new sciences, published in Leiden in 1638 by Luis Elzevir.
In it, on the basis of the discussion on the structure and strength of materials, Galileo laid the foundations and mathematics physical motion analysis that allowed him to demonstrate the laws of the sharp drop in vacuum and develop a complete theory the launching of missiles. The work was destined to become the cornerstone of the science of mechanics built by scientists of the next generation, with Isaac Newton in the head. In the early morning 8 to January 9, 1642, Galileo died in Arcetri comforted by two of his disciples, Vincenzo Viviani and Evangelista Torricelli, who was allowed to live with him in recent years.
Nearly three centuries later, in 1939, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote a play based on the life of the Pisan astronomer where it runs in the interaction of science, politics and social revolution. Although Galileo concludes "I betrayed my profession", the famous playwright thinks, melancholy full of reason, that "miserable is the land that needs heroes." In 1992, exactly three centuries and a half years after the death of Galileo, the Pontifical Commission that John Paul II was responsible for the revision of the inquisitorial process recognized the error committed by the Catholic Church.
Galileo Galilei and his discoveries
Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei played a key role in the intellectual movement that transformed the medieval image of the universe and laid the foundation for the conception of the nature of modern science. His theories (whose controversial nature provoked condemnation from the Catholic Church) have played inherited notions of Aristotelian and Christian scholasticism.
Physical
Galileo made important scientific contributions in the field of physics, which call into question the theories considered true for centuries. Thus, for example, he demonstrated the falsity of the Aristotelian premise that said the acceleration of falling bodies - in free fall - was proportional to its weight, and surmised that in a vacuum all bodies fall with the same speed.
To do so designed and measured results of various experiments, as downhill areas along the plane of the flat surface inclined with different slip angle; It is unlikely, however, that one of these experiments would be to drop bodies of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, as I had thought for a long time. Other notable findings include the laws of the pendulum movement (which began to think, according to the known history, while a lamp flickering in the Cathedral of Pisa is observed) and the laws of accelerated motion.
The work earned him the title of father of modern physics was discourses and mathematical demonstrations on two new sciences (1638), written with the help of his pupil Torricelli, where the results of his research on the systematic mechanics. The first two sections are devoted to the study of the relationship of forces and the strength of materials, and the two last movement of falling bodies and the trajectory of the projectile; This division corresponds to two "new sciences" referred to by the title and now are called static and dynamic. This work laid the foundations of physics and mathematics to the analysis of movement and became the starting point of the science of mechanics, which was continued by later scientists and culminate on the principles of mathematical natural philosophy (1687) Isaac Newton.
Astronomy
His contributions in the field of astronomy and the study of the universe were no less important and collected in works such as Sidereal Messenger (1610), the story and demonstrations on sunspots and accidents (1613) and the famous dialogue on maximum of two world systems (1632), which made it clear through a discussion between the characters of the superiority of the Copernican heliocentric system opposite the medieval exclusivist. Despite its title, the latter work also runs on many other scientific subjects, and was the cause of the second Inquisition in which the elderly and Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment.
From 1609, Galileo improved telescope, an optical instrument of recent invention for a telescope sixty increases. The instrument, which until then had only been used for practice, such as navigation and war, became in his hands a powerful environment for the study of the sky: Galileo explored the sky and came to conclusions that profoundly revolutionized the way of understanding the order of the universe.
Contrary to general belief, it showed that the surface of the moon was not crystal clear, but it was covered with craters and mountains, and the rest refuted the Aristotelian idea of the absolute perfection of the stars. The same result was the discovery of sunspots; careful observation also allowed him to determine the rotation period of the Sun and the direction of its axis.
Galileo discovered, also the four satellites of Jupiter, whose existence showed that not all the stars revolved around the Earth, and can rotating subsystems; and rightly established from his observation that the Milky Way, which had always been a source of confusion and speculation among astronomers, was merely a set of innumerable stars.
His comments also denied the existence of the eighth celestial sphere where, according to Ptolemy's model, the stars were: through the telescope could see stars invisible to the naked eye, which indicated that they were more distant; Moreover, while the planets were expanded in the telescope, the magnitude of the stars, because of its remarkable distance, did not suffer a significant alteration. Both events leading to the assumption requires a much broader universe conceived until then.
The phenomenon of the phases of Venus, who had argued with his disciple, Father Benedetto Castelli, completed his astronomical discoveries, and provides an important test, though not decisive, in the movement of Venus around the sun The defense of the Copernican heliocentric model contrary the geocentric cosmology of Ptolemy until then, you might as well that the conviction of the ecclesiastical authorities; but that judgment could not snatch his role in building the modern view of the universe. Their findings, in fact, be a scientific and crucial even philosophical because, once showed that the universe was more complex and extensive than had been imagined until then, existing since the time of Aristotle cosmological theories and sistematizas by Ptolemy crumbled .
Scientific methodology
Insofar introduced the experimental method in scientific research, Galileo should be considered as the founder of modern science. Although not a specific Treaty dealing with methodological thinking, found in scattered passages of his works, studies and investigations followed a precise methodology based on the observation of facts, experiments and formulating explanatory theories. In addition to its excellent results as a physicist and astronomer, Galileo's importance lies precisely in having created a new scientific mentality, whose bases are still ours. In the history of culture, however, Galileo has become the symbol of freedom in the investigation against the dogmatism of the establishment.
Extracted from site: BiografĂas y Vidas
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