galileo

Galileo was born in Pisa, [|Italy] on February 15, 1564. He died in 1642. His father, [|Vincenzo Galilei], was a musician. Galileo's mother was Giulia degli Ammannati. Galileo was the first of six (though some people believe seven) children. His family belonged to the nobility but was not rich. In the early 1570's, he and his family moved to [|Florence]. In 1581, Galileo began studying at the University of Pisa University of Pisa, where his father hoped he would study medicine. While at the University of Pisa, Galileo began his study of the [|pendulum] while, according to legend, he watched a suspended lamp swing back and forth in the cathedral of Pisa. However, it was not until 1602 that Galileo made his most notable discovery about the pendulum - the period (the time in which a pendulum swings back and forth) does not depend on the arc of the swing (the isochronism). Eventually, this discovery would lead to Galileo's further study of time intervals and the development of his idea for a pendulum clock. At the University of Pisa, Galileo learned the physics of the Ancient Greek scientist, Aristotle. However, Galileo questioned the Aristotelian approach to physics. Aristotelians believed that heavier objects fall faster through a medium than lighter ones. Galileo eventually disproved this idea by asserting that all objects, regardless of their density, fall at the same rate in a vacuum. To determine this, Galileo performed various experiments in which he dropped objects from a certain height. In one of his early experiments, he rolled balls down a gently sloping inclined plane and then determined their positions after equal time intervals. He wrote down his discoveries about motion in his book, [|De Motu], which means "On Motion." In 1592, Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. While teaching there, he frequently visited a place called the Arsenal, where Venetian ships were docked and loaded. Galileo had always been interested in mechanical devices. Naturally, during his visits to the Arsenal, he became fascinated by nautical technologies, such as the [|sector] and shipbuilding. In 1593, he was presented with the problem involving the placement of oars in galleys. He treated the oar as a lever and correctly made the water the fulcrum. A year later, he patented a model for a [|pump]. His pump was a device that raised water by using only one horse. Galileo was never married. However, he did have a brief relationship with [|Marina Gamba], a woman he met on one of his many trips to Venice. Marina lived in Galileo's house in Padua where she bore him three children. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia, were both put in convents where they became, respectively, [|Sister Maria Celeste] and Sister Arcangela. In 1610, Galileo moved from Padua to Florence where he took a position at the Court of the [|Medici] family. He left his son, Vincenzio, with Marina Gamba in Padua. In 1613, Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi, and Vincenzio joined his father in Florence.

http://galileo.rice.edu/

Quote: All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/galileo_galilei.html