Galileo Galilei: The Siderea (M.essenger

Galileo Galilei was an Italian mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who played a key role in the Scientific Revolution. Through his observations with the telescope, he provided evidence that supported Copernicus's theory that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun. He discovered mountains and craters on the Moon and moons orbiting Jupiter. Galileo helped establish the new scientific method of basing theories on experiments and mathematical laws rather than ancient authorities. He established one of the first mathematical laws of motion by describing the acceleration of falling bodies. Galileo helped redefine humanity's understanding of its place in the expanding cosmos.

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Galileo Galilei: The Siderea (M.essenger

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Dewan Olin Chotepadae

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Galileo Galilei

1564-1642 /

A mathematical scientist .. .A Tuscan family ... Galileo's

law of fall ... The pendulum . The basis of ballistics ...
Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe ... Galileo raises
his telescope ... and makes enemies ... Trial by the
Inquisition ... An Jctive old age ... PERSPECTlVE
Academies of Il1arning ... Opposition'to new ideas ...
Instruments on land and sea ... Astrology - a science-art

"He hath first over thrown all former astronomy ... and next all astrology." So reported the English ambassador at Venice, when he learnt
of the discoveries published three days earlier by an obscure professor
of mathematics at the nearby University of Padua, Galileo Galilei.
Never before, and seldom since, has scientific news caused such a stir
as Galileo's first observations with his telescope. Beside the seven
planets mown since the days of ancient Babylon, hehad found four
more: little ones which revolved around Jupiter. On the Moon he had
'seen mountains and plains like those on Earth. These were some of
the revelationsofaslim book called The -Siderea(M.essenger" which
appeared in March1610~ To a ileo'SCoiUemporaries, and perhaps to us, Galileo is best known as the first man to raise a telescope to the
sky, revealing something ofthe immensity ofthe Universe.
Prime mover of the Scientific Revolution
Yet Galileo is much more than that. If anyone person can be said to
have set the Scientific Revolution in motion and pulled modern science out of ancient natural philosophy, that man was Galileo. Of all
the people of his time, he best realized that the old way of looking at
the world would have to go; and he best knew how to begin constructing a new way. This he did by making physics mathematical. Events
on Earth would help explain what could be seen in the sky, the sky
could show us how things happened on Earth. Everywhere nature
behaves in an orderly manner, which we can understand, provided
our interpretation is couched in a mathematical language. For the
proofs of geometry - so he thought - are absolutely certain, unlike
other kinds of human reasoning. What is more, just as one theorem in
geometry leads to the next, so one discovery will lead to another.
Some of Galileo's ideas are not wholly original, and can be traced
back to the Middle Ages, even to ancient Greece. Although he often
criticized Aristotle, Galileo realized that he had set out the basic questions we must answer, if we want to know how the world works. How. ever, Aristotle's answers were inadequate, Galileo believed, because
his physics was not mathematical. Galileo showed, too, how instruments designed according to the principles of optics, a mathematical
science, could extend the powers of the human senses, making them
stronger and more reliable. Above all, for him, unlike the ancient
Greeks, geometry did not have to be restricted to the description of a

static world. The movements of bodies can also be analyzed by means

of lines, triangles, circles and numbers. So time can be treated mathematically in the same way as the three dimensions of space. Galileo
bequeathed to later science the idea of "acceleration" as a mathematically defined concept. That enabled him to demonstrate a "law of
falling bodies" which became the foundation of all later dynamics
(i.e. studies of how objects move).

2
.6. Galileo helped redefine our place in the cosmos.

MBthfHfllfticisn, physicillt, lUfronome,

By the time of Galileo, the institutionalized, 2,000
year-old tradition of Aristotelian science was
already breaking down. A new way of thinking was
taking shape: all real knowledge was to be
expressed in mathematical terms, which, it was
now believed, constituted the only objective and
reliable language. Theories about nature had to be
put to the test of carefully controlled experiments,
whose results should take the form of
measurements. The change of thought took almost
two centuries to become established in western
Europe; today this prolonged crisis is known as the
Scientific Revolution.
Since physics explains the basic characters of
things, it was the foundation or "cutting edge" of
the new science. But only after Nicolaus Copernicus
realized that the Earth is a planet of the Sun, not the
center of the Universe, did it become possible to
reason from Earth to sky and sky to Earth and so to
construct a physics that would apply universally.
That is why the greatest figures of the Scientific
Revolution, Galileo and Newton, were both
physicists and astronomers.
Galileo thrust Copernicus's theory upon the
general public and showed how crucial it was for
an understanding of our place in the cosmos. By
recording his observations with the newly invented
telescope, he launched an astronomy that studied
the features of celestial bodies.
Galileo established mathematical laws
describing the motion of falling bodies.
Understanding the forces that cause bodies to fall,
and that hold the entire system together, he had to
leave to his successors, notably Newton. But
Galileo's dynamics, however elementary, remain
the foundation of classical mechanics.