Galileo Place of Birth and Brief Overview

Galileo

Place of Birth and Brief overview of family life and upbringing

Galileo Galilei's father was Vincenzo Galilei while his mother was called Guilia Ammannati. Vincenzo was born in 1520 in Florence. He was a teacher of music and fine art enthusiast. He was a refined flute player (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). While he was studying music in Venice, Vincenzo carried out a string of experiments to support his musical theories. Galileo's mother Guilia was a native of Pescia. She married Vincenzo in 1563 and moved to the countryside near Pisa. Galileo was the first born in this family. He spent early part of his life in Pisa. When Galileo was hardly nine years old, his family returned to Florence which was his father's hometown (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Galileo on the contrary decided to remain in Pisa for two years. At Pisa, he stayed with Muzio Tedaldi who was his mother's relation. Upon reaching the age of ten, he decided to join his family at Florence. At Florence he was tutored by Jacopo Borghini.

Education

Once Galileo was old enough, he was sent to Camaldolese Monastery at Vallomborosa by his parents. The monastery was 33 km southeast of Florence. The Camaldolese Order was independent of the Benedictine Order following a split that took place in 1012. The order combined the solitary life of the hermit with the strict life of a monk (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Young Galileo found this life very attractive. He soon became a novice with an intention of joining this order. However, this did not please his father who had decided that his eldest son had to become a medical doctor. Galileo had to return to Florence from Vallombrossa. His intentions of joining the Camaldolese religious order essentially went up in flames. Back in Florence, he continued his schooling in school run by the Camaldolese monks. In 1581, he was sent back to Pisa to Muzio Tedaldi by his father. He enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Pisa (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Despite the fact that the medical career never appealed to him, he considered his father's wish a fairly natural one since there was a distinguished physician in his family in the 13th Century. He seems not to have taken his medical studies seriously. He only attended courses on his real interest which was mathematics and natural philosophy. His mathematics teacher at the University, Filippo Fantoni, doubled up as the chair of mathematics. When he returned to Florence for the summer vacations he continued to study mathematics. The mathematician of the Tucson Court and a former pupil of Tartaglia, Ostilio Ricci, happened to have taught Euclid's Elements at Pisa which Galileo attended. This was in the year 1582-83. His father Vincenzo encouraged him whenever he came back to Florence on vacation to read Galen to further his medical studies (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Galileo who was reluctant to study medicine kept inviting Ricci to his home to meet his father. Ricci tried to prevail on Vincenzo to allow Galileo study mathematics since that was where his interest was something that Vincenzo resisted strongly. He, however, eventually gave in a little and allowed Galileo to study the works of Euclid's and Archimedes from Italian translations that Tartaglia had made (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Galileo eventually left Pisa in 1585 without completing his medical degree. He taught mathematics privately in Florence and then during 1585-86, he was given a public appointment at Sienna. During the summer of 1586 he taught at Vallombrossa where he wrote his first scientific book The Little Balance. This book described Archimedes methods of finding specific gravities of substances using a balance. In 1587, he travelled to Rome to meet the Professor of Mathematics at the Jesuit Collegio Romano to share with him the results which he had discovered on centers of gravities which was a very popular topic with Jesuit mathematicians of that time (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Clavius did not, however, grant him a position at the University of Bologna even after he, Galileo, had made favorable impression on him. They kept correspondence though. In 1588, Galileo received a prestigious invitation to lecture on dimensions and location of hell in Dante's Inferno at the Academy in Florence. When Fantoni left the position of chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa, Galileo was eventually appointed to fill the post. Clavius wrote him one of the strongest recommendations (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). He was the chair of mathematics at Pisa for 3 consecutive years. During this time he wrote De Motu which was a series of essays on the theory of motion. To fill the void left by his father, Galileo had to look for more lucrative jobs since being a mathematics professor could not help him take care of his family and pay dowry for his two younger sisters. Upon recommendation from Guidobaldo del Monte he was appointed the professor of mathematics at the University of Padua in 1592; one year after his father had passed on. University of Padua is nowadays called University of the Republic of Venice (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002).

Galileo's contributions

In 1609, Galileo received a letter from Paolo Sarpi that detailed a spyglass that had been made by certain Fleming who was a Dutchman. Using the glass, visible objects that were distant from the eye of the observer became distinctly visible (O'Connor & Robertson, 2002). Galileo used his own technical skills as a craftsman and as a mathematician to make a series of telescopes whose optical performance was better than Fleming's. His first telescope was made of lenses that were capable of magnifying objects four times. He improved on this by grinding and polishing his lenses and by 1609 he had an instrument with a magnification of around 8 or 9. He kept Sarpi informed about the progress he made who eventually arranged a demonstration for the Venetian Senate. Telescopes had commercial and military applications as they could be used for ships at the sea. The Venetian Senate was very impressed with the work of Galileo and increased his salary. He gave the sole rights of the manufacture of the telescopes to the Venetian Senate. He made numerous astronomical discoveries using the telescope and these are described in his short book Starry Messenger. He turned his telescope on Saturn on 25th July 1610 (Pantin, 1999). Saturn appeared as three bodies probably because his telescope was not good enough to show the rings. The rings appeared like lobes on either side of the planet Saturn. In the same year, Galileo discovered that Venus when seen in the telescope showed phases like those of the moon and therefore must orbit the sun and not the earth.

At the age of twenty, Galileo took notice of a lamp that swung overhead immediately after they had been lit in the Cathedral in Rome. He wanted to know how long it took the lamp to swing back and forth. He therefore used his lapse to time large and small swings (Sharratt, 1994). He later discovered that the period of each swing was exactly the same. This is how the law of pendulum was conceived. This made Galileo very famous. The law of pendulum was used to regulate clocks.

Galileo had intended to explain Dante's Inferno from the point-of-view of a scientist. This is something that had been argued at the Academy of Florence for over 100 years. He had wanted to know the location, shape, and dimensions of Dante's Inferno (Sharratt, 1994). He extrapolated from Dante's line that the giant Nimrod's face was about as long and as wide as St. Peter's cone in Rome. He deduced that Lucifer was 2000 arm's length long (Sharratt, 1994). His audience was very impressed with his line of thought and within the year, he received a three-year appointment to the University of Pisa, the same university he left without completing his degree in medicine.