.jpg)
No one was supposed to question any
teachings about astronomy or physics in the 1500s. Most of the teachings came
from ancient Greeks. Galileo thought that the ancient Greeks were wrong about
many ideas. He believed that making careful measurements could help people learn
accurate facts about astronomy and physics. Galileo was one of the people who
began what we now call the modern scientific revolution.
LIFE AND CAREER
Galileo Galilei was born near Pisa,
Italy, on February 15, 1564. After attending the university, he taught
mathematics. He also observed how things move. There is a story that he dropped
two objects of different weights at the same time from the Leaning Tower of
Pisa. He found that light and heavy objects fell at the same rate. The ancient
Greek Aristotle taught that heavier objects fell faster.
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
In the early 1600s, Galileo was
the first person to use a telescope to look at objects in the night sky. He
discovered many things, including mountains and craters on the Moon and four
moons going around Jupiter. Galileo also defended the idea of Polish astronomer
Copernicus that Earth goes around the Sun. The ancient astronomer Ptolemy said
that Earth was the center of the universe and that the Sun went around Earth.
Ptolemy’s system was the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Church
authorities ordered Galileo not to defend Copernicus’s theory.
HERESY TRIAL AND CONVICTION
In 1632, Galileo published a book
that compared Ptolemy’s and Copernicus’s ideas. The book concluded that
Copernicus was right. Galileo was ordered to go to Rome and stand trial for
heresy (holding ideas opposed to church teachings). Galileo was forced to
say that Copernicus was wrong. Galileo was sentenced to life in prison. He was
old and sick, so instead they kept him inside his house. In 1992, Pope John Paul
II said the church was wrong to convict Galileo of heresy.
Source Taken From:
No comments:
Post a Comment