Galileo Galilei: biography and contributions to science of this researcher.

Knowing the life of Galileo Galilei helps to understand the birth of modern science.

Among the great figures who have shaped the scientific revolution during the Renaissance we can find the figure of Galileo Galilei who, and not for nothing, is considered the father of modern science..

This Italian mathematician, physicist and scientist has contributed enormously to science, in addition to having changed the paradigm on what was the position of the Earth in the Universe, something that felt very bad to the ecclesiastical authorities.

Here's what follows, in this biography of Galileo Galilei, we will discover what a genius this researcher was.He was a firm believer that the world could be explained by mathematics, a discipline that he always applied in his numerous experiments, without which our world would be very different.

Brief biography of Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician and astronomer who devoted most of his life to teaching and researching how nature worked, that is, the laws that governed the Universe. Through his observations, findings and experiments, the Italian scientist laid the foundations of astronomy. laid the foundations of astronomy and modern physics.He is also considered one of the fathers of modern science. Let's start with the early years of his life, and then move on to his maturation as a scientist.

Childhood and early years

Galileo Galilei was born in the Italian city of Pisa, then the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, on February 15, 1564.. He grew up in a family of merchants who, until he was 10 years old, personally dedicated themselves to the formation of the young Galileo. However, once he had reached that age, the family had to emigrate to Florence and since they could not take care of Galileo, they left his education in charge of a neighbor.

His neighbor was a very religious man, who considered it appropriate for the boy to enter a convent. When Galileo's father found out about this, he did not take it well, since it so happened that he was not a very religious man.

He decided to take the young man out of the convent and, years later, in 1581, ordered him to enroll at the University of Pisa to study medicine. Galileo spent four years enrolled in that career, but it did not arouse great interest in him and he ended up dropping out at the age of 21, without receiving his degree.

Although his hobby was not medicine, this did not mean that he was not at all interested in higher learning, quite the contrary. The young Galileo Galilei had a great interest in mathematics.He was guilty of not having invested enough hours of study in the practice of medicine. As time went by, mathematics would eventually give way to his true vocation: physics.

Professional life

Well into his twenties, Galileo began to perform experiments in mechanics, something that did not go unnoticed by many teachers.. His self-taught knowledge of mathematics was so superb that, at the age of 25, he won a teaching position in mathematics at the University of Pisa. Later, in 1592, Galileo moved to Padua and began working as a professor at the university there, teaching disciplines such as astronomy, mechanics and geometry.

His time in Padua was to be a prosperous one. In the 18 years he spent in that city, leaving in 1610, he would make most of his discoveries. Although the long shadow of the Holy Inquisition hung over Europe, the city of Padua was a place far from religious repression, so Galileo was able to enjoy relative freedom of thought and opinion, as well as to conduct all kinds of experiments.

While in Padua he established the law explaining the accelerated motion of objects, observed the starsIn fact, one of the high points of his professional career occurred there, in 1609, the year in which he perfected the telescope and was able to observe the night sky in a way that no one had ever achieved before, and obtaining the findings that allowed him to question the geocentric theory.

Heliocentric theory and visit to Rome

Thanks to his improvement of the telescope Galileo Galilei would get enough data to dare to question one of the main beliefs inherited from the Middle Ages: the geocentric theory. one of the main beliefs inherited from the Middle Ages: the geocentric theory, in other words, the Earth is the center of the Universe.In other words, the Earth is the center of the Universe.

Through his observations he came to the conclusion that the Sun was the center of the galaxy and not our planet, and he did so using the scientific method, not based on his beliefs or on unfounded assumptions.

In turn, since the Earth was not the center of the Universe, our planet moved. Thus Galileo confirmed the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus that he had formulated years earlier, in which he himself said that the Earth was not the center of everything.. It gave strength to heliocentrism. His observations with the telescope served him to demonstrate that the celestial bodies did not revolve around the Earth, but that the planets revolved around the Sun.

In 1611 he traveled to the papal capital, Rome, with the intention of presenting his revolutionary findings.. Rejecting the model that until then had been widely accepted in Renaissance society drew the attention of many scientists and, also, the rejection of most of the ecclesiastical authorities. To affirm that the Earth was not the center of everything was an attack against one of the fundamental pillars of the Church and the Christian religion.

Censure was not long in coming and in 1616 the Holy Inquisition prohibited Galileo from defending, disseminating, teaching and sustaining the heliocentric theory. Despite the repression against his science, Galileo continued researching and developing his studies, as well as publishing works. To circumvent censorship, instead of "defending" heliocentrism, he presented this idea as a hypothesis.so that, technically, he was not defending it, but explaining it. A clever and subtle nuance that allowed him to continue publishing for a while.

Condemnation and death

Decades passed and, perhaps a little fed up with having to present a scientific fact as a mere hypothesis, in 1632 he published a work in which he openly defended the heliocentric theory: Dialogues on the two highest systems of the world.. This time the Inquisition was quick to take notice and began to investigate this case as heresy.. A year later, at the age of 69 Galileo was tried in Rome for non-compliance with the censorship of 1616, treating it as a crime and threatening him with torture.

Galileo Galilei was eventually forced to deny the heliocentric theory and its findings. After rejecting his ideas, his sentence was reduced to house arrest, which, although unjust, was preferable to being tortured with the most ingenious inquisitorial devices. Legend has it that, as he left the courtroom, he whispered "Eppur si muove", ("Nevertheless, it moves"), alluding that no matter how much censorship, persecution and denial of the facts, the Earth would continue to move as he had observed.

His house arrest lasted from 1633 to 1638, the year in which he became blind. The Holy Inquisition had a bit of Christian charity when they saw that Galileo Galilei could no longer see and agreed to move him to a home near the sea.

Finally, on January 8, 1642, Galileo on January 8, 1642, at the age of 77, the scientist died.. He died rejected by his followers who did not forgive him for surrendering to inquisitorial pressure and seen as a heretic by the Holy Church, an institution which recognized the error of having condemned him in 1992. Better late than never.

Galileo Galilei's Contributions to Science

Galileo Galilei firmly believed that everything that happened in nature could be explained by means of mathematical language.. Thanks to his mathematical knowledge and the way he applied it, Galileo managed to make the world see that without numbers mankind would never understand how the Universe works. With his numbers and by developing the scientific method, the Italian scientist overturned several of the beliefs that were still widespread in the Renaissance mentality.

Observing the night sky through his telescope, he demonstrated that the Sun was the center of the solar system and that the Earth, contrary to what was thought at the time, revolved around it. Thus, he tried to prove that the classical theory of geocentrism was not true and that the heliocentric theory was true, although with its limitations. This finding, along with others, made Galileo Galilei one of the most important figures of the 1500s, turning the world from dark and medieval to bright and Renaissance.

He was also a great man of science who even confronted the Holy Church in order to defend his scientific findings.. No matter how much religion may want to look the other way or deny a finding, facts are facts, and no unfounded belief or assumption can change them.

The following are the main contributions to science made by this Italian scientist, considered the father of modern science.

1. Scientific method

Galileo Galilei is not considered one of the fathers of modern science for the sake of it, in fact, in fact, he could be considered the father of modern scienceGalileo Galilei is not considered one of the fathers of modern science for nothing, in fact, he could be considered the father of modern science, since it is to him that we owe the development of the scientific method.

He was a strong advocate that research should be based on the formulation of a hypothesis that, depending on the findings and different empirical tests, was going to be rejected or accepted.

2. Heliocentric theory

Galileo Galilei's heliocentric theory was what made him have to face the Inquisition courts. This contribution is considered the definitive moment in the divorce between the Church and Science..

With his observations Galileo gave strength to the Copernican theory, which defended that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around. This theory was one of the greatest scientific revolutions in history because it broke with the belief that man was the center of the Universe. it broke with the belief that man was the center of the Universe..

It must also be said that Galileo was wrong to think that the Sun was the center of the Galaxy. It was indeed the center of the Solar System, but today we know that the Sun orbits around other larger celestial objects and that its position in the Milky Way is rather peripheral.

3. Invention of the telescope

Technically, he was not the one who invented the telescope from scratch, since there were already other similar objects with lenses that allowed to see larger objects. However, it was Galileo Galileo's ingenuity, it was Galileo Galilei's ingenuity that made it possible to improve these devices.creating the first telescope as we know it today, an instrument that could magnify celestial bodies up to 30 times.

4. Observations in the firmament

Thanks to the development of his telescope Galileo was able to observe the firmament as no one had ever done before. He was the first to observe the craters of the Moon, sunspots, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus and other astronomical phenomena and bodies. Also He was the first to reveal that there were more stars in the Universe than could be seen with the naked eye..

5. Laws of motion

Galileo Galilei served as an inspiration and, in addition, was the precursor of the laws of motion, which would be postulated several years later by the English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton. Galileo observed that all objects accelerated at the same rate when falling from the same height, regardless of how large or heavy they were. From this he concluded that forces were the cause of motion, so that if no force was applied to an object it had no reason to move.

6. Development of mathematics

In his youth, Galileo Galilei was fond of mathematics and considered that it could explain the laws of how the world worked. Mathematics was a fundamental tool for understanding nature since the world was governed by numbers.

He was one of the first scientists to base his research on mathematics, using numbers as tools to analyze and understand the phenomena that occurred in nature..

7. Precursor of the thermometer

Galileo Galilei is also credited with creating the forerunner of the thermometer, called the thermoscope. It was a rather rudimentary tool to our eyes but complex for its time that served to measure temperature.

Bibliographical references:

• Albornoz, C. (2017) "Galileo Galilei: Founder of Modern Science." Research Gate.
• Bombal Gordón, F. (2014) "Galileo Galilei: a Man against Darkness". Royal Academy of Sciences.
• Marquina, J.E. (2009) "Galileo Galilei". Revista Ciencia