|
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy. He studied medicine, but later
abandoned this in favor of science and mathematics. At the age of 25
he demonstrated that light objects fall at the same rate as heavy ones,
by dropping cannonballs of various sizes from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
This contradicted the then-accepted view of Aristotle that heavier objects
fall more quickly. He also showed that the distance an object falls
is proportional to the square of the time it has been falling, and from
this was able to prove that the path of a projectile is a parabola.
Galileo constructed the first telescope, and using it, discovered the
moons of Jupiter. His advocacy of the Copernican view that the earth
revolves around the sun (rather than being stationary) led to his being
called before the Inquisition. By then an old man, he was forced to
recant his views, but he is said to have uttered under his breath "the
earth nevertheless does move". Galileo revolutionized science by expressing
scientific principles in the language of mathematics. He said, "The
great book of nature is written in mathematical symbols".
|