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“I render infinite thanks to
God for being so kind as to
make me alone the first
observer of marvels kept
hidden in obscurity for all
previous centuries.”
– Excerpt from “Galileo’s Daughter,”
by Dava Sobel
Portrait of Galileo Galilei
by Justus Sustermans
“In questions of
science, the authority
of a thousand is not
worth the humble
reasoning of a single
individual.”
“All truths are easy
ALILEO WAS A 17th century to understand once
astronomer who focused on they are discovered;
the night sky. He also invented the point is to
several devices that have discover them.”
contributed to the advancement of Smithsonian Institution exhibition: Journeys of the Mind: Explaining the Heavens Leiden: I.A. Huguetan, 1641, Gift of the Burndy Library
science and technology. Galileo’s great 1632 treatise, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo . . .
(“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”).
The Copernican theory
Galileo supported the Copernican theory
that planets orbit around the sun, a “heresy”
that contradicted the long-held theory of the
early Roman Catholic Church that the Earth The telescope Pendulum clock
was the center of the universe. An institution By the 13th century, technological advances A popular story describing the
of the church that dealt with heresy, the in Italy led to the development of lenses that invention of the pendulum clock
Inquisition warned Galileo not to defend would serve the optical needs of Italians. involves a young Galileo who, instead
Copernicus’ theories. Pope Urban VIII This same technology provided an opportu- of paying attention during a church
allowed Galileo to treat the theories as nity to create a device that was necessary to service, observed the rotational habits
INVENTIONS
mathematical observations; however, Galileo more closely observe extraterrestrial bodies, of a swinging chandelier. With his
continued in his belief that the sun was the such as the stars and planets. Experimenta- pulse, Galileo measured the time it
center of the universe and published his tion with the glass eventually led to the took for the chandelier to swing
“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World development of one of the earliest telescopes, around once. He postulated that the
Systems” in 1632. In reality, Galileo created in 16th century England by Leonard weight of the pendulum swung did not
Galileo observed through his telescope that the believed in God and did not intend to and Thomas Digges. By 1608, an advanced make a difference in the time.
surface of the moon was pocked with craters. offend the church. However, following telescope was unveiled in the Netherlands, Instead, he determined that the time
the publication of the “Dialogue,” and it spread across Europe into Italy. With needed for a pendulum to complete
the Inquisition called Galileo in for the blueprints of these early examples, one circulation is directly propor-
questioning once again. He was forced Galileo created three different telescopes tioned to the square root of the length
to recant the heliocentric theory. Upon throughout the following year. These instru-
of the string or cable holding the
his knees in 1633, Galileo agreed to ments allowed Galileo to observe not only the
pendulum. Invented in 1660, the
publicly recant in order to avoid planetary bodies themselves but also their
pendulum became a new device to
torture and death. The Inquisition surfaces. Although modern-day telescopes
Pope Urban VIII
n VII
III measure time.
sentenced Galileo to house arrest. allow us to observe far beyond what Galileo
During the last years of his life, Galileo could, much of the device’s advancement
finished his work, “Discourses on the Two came from his experimentation.
New Sciences,” which was smuggled into the
The Galileo spacecraft took this image of the moon in 1992, on its way to explore the Jupiter system.
Netherlands and published six years before
his death. Galileo was a pioneer of astron-
omy and physics. His work influenced the
likes of great scientific and philosophic
thinkers, including Albert Einstein, Issac
Newton and Ernst Cassirer.
The thermoscope
After centuries of mystery concerning the
measurement of heat, a group of scientists
(including Galileo) in Venice developed a
device called the thermoscope. Prior to the
invention of the thermoscope, the standard
medium for temperature measurement was
through the touch of the hand. Thus, a newly
developed thermometer became one of the
inventions of the 17th century and a part of
the Scientific Revolution. Although a
universal standard of heat measurement Galileo spacecraft
was not adopted until the following century, Galileo was an unmanned spacecraft
Galileo and his scientist friends made launched in 1989 by the space shuttle
scientific advances that allowed another Atlantis with the purpose of studying
generation of scientists to develop what the planet Jupiter and its moons. On
would become the thermometers used in Sept. 21, 2003, when its onboard fuel
the medical field today. was nearly depleted, Galileo was
deliberately destroyed, plunging into
Jupiter’s crushing atmosphere. By
eliminating the chance of impact with
the surface of the moon Europa, one of
the Galileo mission’s own discoveries
— a possible ocean beneath Europa’s
Galileo had the misfortune icy crust — was protected. Galileo
of being a brilliant radical changed the way we look at our solar
thinker in an age when new system. The spacecraft was the first to
ideas were considered fly past an asteroid and the first to NASA/JPL/GALILEO SPACECRAFT
dangerous. But he paved discover a moon of an asteroid. It The planet Jupiter's four largest
the way for the famous provided the only direct observations moons are called the Galilean
of a comet colliding with a planet. satellites, after Italian astronomer
English physicist Isaac solarsystem.nasa.gov/galileo Galileo, who observed them in
Newton, who was born in 1610.The German astronomer
1642, the year Galileo Sir Isaac Newton 1642-1727
Simon Marius claimed to have
died. Newton lived in an mathematics, optics and seen the moons around the same
age enthusiastic for new physics. Newton used one LEARN MORE time, but he did not publish his
observations, and so Galileo is
discoveries, receiving of Galileo’s mathematical The Galileo Project is an ongoing given the credit for their discovery.
lasting recognition for his descriptions, the law of Web source for information on
These large moons, named Io,
revolutionary accomplish- inertia, as the foundation the life and work of of Galileo.
Europa, Ganymede and Callisto,
ments in the fields of for his first law of motion. galileo.rice.edu/science.html are each distinctive worlds.
DESIGN BY LOU ANN REINEKE, DESERET MORNING NEWS