CSMH History Class

1632 - Galileo

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Galileo Galilei

1564-1642

Galileo Galilei was a famous italian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and physicist. He was born in 1564 on Febuary 15th and died on January 8th, 1642. Galileo's home town was Pisa, Italy, and he died in Arcetri, Italy. He was known for the telescope, solarsystem and kinematics. Galileo's religion was roman catholic. When Galileo was 33 years old, his father, Vincenzo Galilei, died, so he had to take care of his younger brother, Michelagnolo. Before his fathers death, Galileo enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Pisa because his father urged him too. He never finished his degree, but instead decided to study mathematics. As a result, in 1589, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa.

Galileo made many contributions to phisics, mathmatics, astronomy, and especially technology. Without his contributions, we wouldn't have telescopes that worked (he improved the telescope, he didn't make it). In the week of January 7th, 1610, Galileo discovered Jupiters 4 moons. He studied Venus too, in September, 1610. He noticed that Venus showed a full set of phases, just like the moon. Galileo was also the first to notice that the planet, Saturn, had rings. When he first started looking at Saturn, though, he thought the rings were moons. Without very good technology back in the 1600's, it took Galileo a while to finally discover that the so called "moons" were actually hundreds of thousands of rings aroung the planet.