If reason and experience coincide in any way, it does not matter to me

That this is contrary to the opinion of the majority.

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564 - January 8, 1642) was an Italian physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who had a significant impact on the science of his time. He was the first to use a telescope to observe celestial bodies and made a number of outstanding astronomical discoveries. Founder of experimental physics. Founder of classical mechanics.

He was born in the city of Pisa into a noble but impoverished family. His father was a talented musician and composer, but art did not provide a livelihood, and the father of the future scientist earned money by trading in cloth.

Until the age of eleven, Galileo lived in Pisa and studied at a regular school, and then moved with his family to Florence. Here he continued his education in a Benedictine monastery, where he studied grammar, arithmetic, rhetoric and other subjects.

At the age of seventeen, Galileo entered the University of Pisa and began to prepare for the profession of a doctor. At the same time, out of curiosity, he read works on mathematics and mechanics, in particular, Euclid and Archimedes. Later, Galileo always called the latter his teacher.

Due to a cramped financial situation, the young man had to leave the University of Pisa and return to Florence. At home, Galileo independently engaged in an in-depth study of mathematics and physics, which interested him very much. In 1586, he wrote his first scientific work, The Small Hydrostatic Balance, which brought him some fame and allowed him to meet several scientists. Under the patronage of one of the Galilei, in 1589 he received the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa. At twenty-five, he became a professor at the place where he studied, but did not complete his education.

Galileo taught students mathematics and astronomy, which he expounded, of course, according to Ptolemy. It was to this time that the experiments that he set, throwing various bodies from the inclined Leaning Tower of Pisa, to check whether they fall in accordance with the teachings of Aristotle - heavy faster than light ones. The answer turned out to be negative.

In On Motion (1590), Galileo criticized the Aristotelian doctrine of the fall of bodies.

The establishment by Galileo of the isochronism of small oscillations of the pendulum belongs to the same period - the independence of the period of its oscillations from the amplitude. He came to this conclusion by watching the swinging of the chandeliers in the Pisa Cathedral and noting the time by the beating pulse on his arm.

Galileo's criticism of the physical ideas of Aristotle set against him numerous supporters of the ancient Greek scientist. The young professor became very uncomfortable in Pisa, and he accepted an invitation to take the chair of mathematics at the famous University of Padua.

The Padua period is the most fruitful and happy in the life of Galileo. Here he found a family, linking his fate with Marina Gamba, who bore him two daughters and a son.

Since 1606, Galileo has been engaged in astronomy. In March 1610, his work entitled The Starry Messenger was published. It is unlikely that so much sensational astronomical information was reported in one work, moreover, literally during several night observations in January - February of the same 1610.

Having learned about the invention of the telescope and having a good workshop of his own, Galileo makes several samples of telescopes, constantly improving their quality. As a result, the scientist managed to make a telescope with a magnification of 32 times. On the night of January 7, 1610, he points the telescope to the sky. What he saw there - a lunar landscape, mountain ranges and peaks that cast shadows, valleys and seas - already led to the idea that the Moon was similar to the Earth - a fact that testified not in favor of religious dogmas and Aristotle's teachings about a special the position of the earth among the heavenly bodies.

A huge white band in the sky - the Milky Way - when viewed through a telescope, was clearly divided into separate stars. Near Jupiter, the scientist noticed small stars, which changed their position relative to the planet the very next night. Galileo, with his kinematic perception of natural phenomena, did not need to think long - before him were the satellites of Jupiter! - another argument against the exclusive position of the Earth. Galileo discovered the existence of four moons of Jupiter. Later, Galileo discovered the phenomenon of Saturn (although he did not understand what was the matter) and discovered the phases of Venus.

By observing how sunspots move across the solar surface, he found that the Sun also rotates around its axis. Based on observations, Galileo concluded that rotation around an axis is characteristic of all celestial bodies.

Observing the starry sky, he became convinced that the number of stars is much greater than can be seen with the naked eye. So Galileo confirmed Giordano Bruno's idea that the expanses of the Universe are endless and inexhaustible. After that, Galileo concluded that the heliocentric system of the world proposed by Copernicus is the only true one.

The telescopic discoveries of Galileo were met by many with distrust, even with hostility, but the supporters of the Copernican doctrine, and above all Kepler, who immediately published the Conversation with the Starry Messenger, treated them with delight, seeing in this confirmation of the correctness of their convictions.

The Star Messenger brought the scientist European fame. The Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II Medici offered Galileo to take the position of court mathematician. She promised a comfortable existence, free time for doing science, and the scientist accepted the offer. In addition, this allowed Galileo to return to his homeland, to Florence.

Now, having a powerful patron in the person of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Galileo more and more boldly begins to propagate the teachings of Copernicus. Clerical circles are alarmed. The authority of Galileo as a scientist is high, his opinion is listened to. So, many will decide, the doctrine of the motion of the Earth is not just one of the hypotheses of the structure of the world, which simplifies astronomical calculations.

In Rome, denunciations against Galileo rained down. In 1616, at the request of the Congregation of the Holy Index (an ecclesiastical institution in charge of permits and prohibitions), eleven prominent theologians examined the teachings of Copernicus and came to the conclusion that it was false. On the basis of this conclusion, the heliocentric doctrine was declared heretical, and Copernicus' book On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres was included in the index of forbidden books. At the same time, all books that supported this theory were banned - those that existed and those that will be written in the future.

Galileo was summoned from Florence to Rome and, in a mild but categorical manner, demanded that he stop propagating heretical ideas about the structure of the world. Galileo was forced to comply. He did not forget how persistence in "heresy" ended for Giordano Bruno. Moreover, as a philosopher, he knew that "heresy" today becomes truth tomorrow.

In 1623, under the name of Urban VIII, Galileo's friend, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, became pope. The scientist hurries to Rome. He hopes to achieve the abolition of the prohibition of the "hypothesis" of Copernicus, but in vain. The pope explains to Galileo that now, when the Catholic world is torn apart by heresy, it is unacceptable to question the truth of the holy faith.

Galileo returns to Florence and continues to work on a new book, without losing hope of someday publishing his work. In 1628, he visits Rome again to reconnoiter the situation and find out the attitude of the highest hierarchs of the church to the teachings of Copernicus. In Rome, he meets the same intolerance, but it does not stop him. Galileo finishes the book and in 1630 presents it to the Congregation.

Consideration of the work of Galileo in censorship lasted two years, then a ban followed. Then Galileo decided to publish his work in his native Florence. He managed to skillfully deceive the local censors, and in 1632 the book was published.

It was called "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican" and was written as a dramatic work. For censorship reasons, Galileo is forced to exercise caution: the book is written in the form of a dialogue between two supporters of Copernicus and one adherent of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and each of the interlocutors tries to understand the point of view of the other, assuming its justice. In the preface, Galileo is forced to declare that since the teachings of Copernicus are contrary to the holy faith and forbidden, he is not at all his supporter, and in the book the Copernican theory is only discussed, not affirmed. But neither the preface nor the form of presentation could hide the truth: the dogmas of Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy suffer such an obvious collapse here, and the theory of Copernicus triumphs so convincingly that, contrary to what was said in the preface, Galileo's personal attitude to the teachings of Copernicus and his conviction in the justice of this teaching did not raise doubts.

The church authorities were furious. Sanctions followed immediately. The sale of Dialogue was banned, and Galileo was summoned to Rome for trial. In vain did the seventy-year-old elder present the testimony of three doctors that he was ill. It was reported from Rome that if he did not come voluntarily, he would be brought by force, in shackles. And the aged scientist went on his way.

The investigation dragged on from April to June 1633, and on June 22, in the same church, almost at the same place where Giordano Bruno heard the death sentence, Galileo, on his knees, pronounced the text of the renunciation offered to him. Under the threat of torture, Galileo, refuting the accusation that he violated the ban on propagating the teachings of Copernicus, was forced to admit that he "unconsciously" contributed to the confirmation of the correctness of this teaching, and publicly renounce it. In doing so, the humiliated Galileo understood that the process started by the Inquisition would not stop the triumphal march of the new teaching, he himself needed time and opportunity to further develop the ideas embodied in the Dialogue so that they would become the beginning of the classical system of the world, in which there would be no place church dogma. This process caused irreparable damage to the Church.

The Pope did not keep Galileo in prison for long. After the verdict, Galileo was settled in one of the Medici villas, from where he was transferred to the palace of his friend, Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena. Five months later, Galileo was allowed to go home, and he settled in Arcetri, next to the monastery where his daughters were. Here he spent the rest of his life under house arrest and under the constant supervision of the Inquisition.

For two years in prison, Galileo wrote "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs ...", where, in particular, he sets out the foundations of dynamics. When the book is finished, the entire Catholic world (Italy, France, Germany, Austria) refuses to print it.

In May 1636, the scientist negotiates the publication of his work in Holland, and then secretly forwards the manuscript there. The Conversations are published in Leiden in July 1638, and the book reaches Arcetri almost a year later - in June 1639. By that time, the blinded Galileo (years of hard work, age and the fact that the scientist often looked at the Sun without good light filters affected) could only feel his offspring with his hands.

Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, at the age of 78, in his bed. Pope Urban forbade the burial of Galileo in the family crypt of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. They buried him in Archetri without honors, the Pope also did not allow him to erect a monument.

In 1737, the ashes of Galileo, as he requested, were transferred to the Basilica of Santa Croce, where on March 17 he was solemnly buried next to Michelangelo. In 1758, Pope Benedict XIV ordered that works advocating heliocentrism be struck out of the Index of Forbidden Books; however, this work was carried out slowly and was completed only in 1835.

From 1979 to 1981, at the initiative of Pope John Paul II, a commission for the rehabilitation of Galileo worked, and on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II officially recognized that the Inquisition had made a mistake in 1633, forcing the scientist to renounce the theory of Copernicus by force.

This was the first and only case in the history of the Catholic Church of a public recognition of the injustice of condemning a heretic, committed 337 years after his death.

Of course, Galileo Galilei is a great thinker, mechanic and astronomer, first of all. But he also turned his attention to mathematics. Probability theory includes his research on outcomes when throwing dice. In his Discourse on Dice (1718) a fairly complete analysis of this problem was made. In Conversations on Two New Sciences, he formulated the "Galilean paradox": there are as many natural numbers as their squares, although most of the numbers are not squares. This prompted further research into the nature of infinite sets and their classification, a process that culminated in the creation of set theory.

The following geometric objects bear the name of Galileo:

• Galilean spiral

Based on the article "Galileo Galilei" of D. Samin's book "100 Great Scientists" and Wikipedia.

Galileo Galileo - an outstanding Italian scientist, author of a large number of important astronomical discoveries, mathematician, founder of experimental physics, creator of the foundations of classical mechanics, a gifted literary person - was born into the family of a famous musician, an impoverished nobleman on February 15, 1564 in Pisa. His full name is Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei. Art in its most diverse manifestations interested the young Galileo since childhood, he not only fell in love with painting and music for life, but was also a real master in these areas.

Having been educated in a monastery, Galileo thought about a career as a clergyman, but his father insisted that his son study to be a doctor, and in 1581 the 17-year-old boy began to study medicine at the University of Pisa. During his studies, Galileo showed great interest in mathematics and physics, had his own point of view on many issues, different from the opinion of the luminaries, and was known as a great lover of discussions. Due to the financial difficulties of the family, Galileo did not study for even three years, and in 1585 he was forced to return to Florence without a degree.

In 1586, Galileo published the first scientific work entitled "Small hydrostatic balance". Seeing remarkable potential in the young man, he was taken under his wing by the wealthy Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, who was interested in science, thanks to whose efforts Galileo received a paid scientific position. In 1589 he returned to the University of Pisa, but already as a professor of mathematics - there he began to work on his own research in the field of mathematics and mechanics. In 1590, his work "On the Movement" was published, which criticized the Aristotelian doctrine.

In 1592, a new, extremely fruitful stage began in Galileo's biography, associated with his moving to the Venetian Republic and teaching at the University of Padua, a rich educational institution with an excellent reputation. The scientific authority of the scientist grew rapidly, in Padua he quickly became the most famous and popular professor, respected not only by the scientific community, but also by the government.

Galileo's scientific research received a new impetus in connection with the discovery in 1604 of a star known today under the name of Kepler's supernova and the general interest in astronomy increased in connection with this. At the end of 1609, he invented and created the first telescope, with the help of which he made a number of discoveries described in the work "The Starry Messenger" (1610) - for example, the presence of mountains and craters on the Moon, satellites of Jupiter, etc. The book produced a real sensation and brought Galileo pan-European glory. His personal life was also arranged during this period: a civil marriage with Marina Gamba subsequently gave him three beloved children.

The glory of the great scientist did not save Galileo from material problems, which served as an impetus for moving to Florence in 1610, where, thanks to Duke Cosimo II of Medici, he managed to get a prestigious and well-paid position as a court adviser with easy duties. Galileo continues to make scientific discoveries, among which were, in particular, the presence of spots on the Sun, its rotation around its axis. The camp of the scientist's ill-wishers was constantly replenished, not least because of his habit of expressing his views in a harsh, polemical manner, because of his growing influence.

In 1613, the book "Letters on Sunspots" was published with an open defense of the views of Copernicus on the structure of the solar system, which undermined the authority of the church, because. did not coincide with the postulates of the sacred scriptures. In February 1615, the Inquisition initiated a case against Galileo for the first time. Already in March of the same year, heliocentrism was officially declared a dangerous heresy, in connection with which the scientist's book was banned - with the author's warning about the inadmissibility of further support for Copernicanism. Returning to Florence, Galileo changed tactics, making the teachings of Aristotle the main object of his critical mind.

In the spring of 1630, the scientist summarizes many years of work in the "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican." The book, published by hook or by crook, attracted the attention of the Inquisition, as a result of which, a couple of months later, it was withdrawn from sale, and its author was summoned to Rome on February 13, 1633, where an investigation was conducted until June 21 in the case of accusing him of heresy. Faced with a difficult choice, Galileo, in order to avoid the fate of Giordano Bruno, renounced his views and spent the rest of his life under house arrest in his villa near Florence, under the strictest control of the Inquisition.

But even in such conditions, he did not stop his scientific activity, although everything that came out of his pen was subject to censorship. In 1638, his work Conversations and Mathematical Proofs, secretly sent to Holland, was published, on the basis of which Huygens and Newton subsequently continued to develop the postulates of mechanics. The last five years of his biography were overshadowed by illness: Galileo worked, being almost blind, with the help of his students.

The greatest scientist, who died on January 8, 1642, was buried as a mere mortal, the Pope did not give permission to erect a monument. In 1737, his ashes were solemnly reburied, according to the dying will of the deceased, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. In 1835, work was completed to remove the works of Galileo from the list of banned literature, initiated by Pope Benedict XIV in 1758, and in October 1992, Pope John Paul II, following the work of a special rehabilitation commission, officially recognized the erroneous actions of the Inquisition regarding Galileo Galilei.

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa to the musician Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati. In 1572 he moved with his family to Florence. In 1581 he began to study medicine at the University of Pisa. One of Galileo's teachers, Ostilio Ricci, supported the young man in his passion for mathematics and physics, which affected the further fate of the scientist.

Galileo was unable to graduate from the university due to his father's financial difficulties and was forced to return to Florence, where he continued to study science. In 1586, he completed work on the treatise "Little Scales", in which (following Archimedes) he described the device he invented for hydrostatic weighing, and in the next work he gave a number of theorems regarding the center of gravity of paraboloids of revolution. Assessing the growth of the scientist's reputation, the Florentine Academy chose him as an arbitrator in a dispute about how the topography of Dante's Hell (1588) should be interpreted from a mathematical point of view. Thanks to the assistance of his friend the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, Galileo received an honorary but meagerly paid position as professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa.

The death of his father in 1591 and the extreme constraint of his financial situation forced Galileo to look for a new job. In 1592 he received the chair of mathematics in Padua (in the possession of the Venetian Republic). After spending eighteen years here, Galileo Galilei made the discovery of the quadratic dependence of the fall path on time, established the parabolic trajectory of the projectile, and also made many other equally important discoveries.

In 1609, Galileo Galilei, modeled on the first Dutch telescopes, made his own telescope, capable of creating a threefold zoom, and then designed a telescope with a thirtyfold zoom, magnifying one thousand times. Galileo was the first person to point a telescope at the sky; what was seen there meant a genuine revolution in the concept of the cosmos: the Moon turned out to be covered with mountains and hollows (earlier the surface of the Moon was considered smooth), the Milky Way - consisting of stars (according to Aristotle - this is a fiery evaporation like a tail of comets), Jupiter - surrounded by four satellites (their rotation around Jupiter was an obvious analogy to the rotation of the planets around the Sun). Galileo later added to these observations the discovery of the phases of Venus and sunspots. He published the results in a book that was published in 1610 under the title The Starry Herald. The book brought Galileo European fame. The well-known mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler enthusiastically responded to it, the monarchs and the higher clergy showed great interest in the discoveries of Galileo. With their help, he received a new, more honorable and secure position - the post of court mathematician of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1611, Galileo visited Rome, where he was admitted to the scientific "Academy dei Lincei".

In 1613, he published a work on sunspots, in which he spoke for the first time quite definitely in favor of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.

However, to proclaim this in Italy at the beginning of the 17th century meant to repeat the fate of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake. The central point of the controversy that arose was the question of how to combine facts proven by science with passages from the Holy Scriptures that contradict them. Galileo believed that in such cases the biblical story should be understood allegorically. The church attacked the theory of Copernicus, whose book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543), more than half a century after its publication, was on the list of banned publications. A decree to this effect appeared in March 1616, and a month earlier, the chief theologian of the Vatican, Cardinal Bellarmine, suggested to Galileo that he no longer defend Copernicanism. In 1623, Galileo's friend and patron Maffeo Barberini became pope under the name of Urban VIII. At the same time, the scientist published his new work - "Assay Master", which examines the nature of physical reality and methods for studying it. It was here that the famous saying of the scientist appeared: "The Book of Nature is written in the language of mathematics."

In 1632, Galileo's book "Dialogue on the Two Systems of the World, Ptolemaic and Copernican" was published, which was soon banned by the Inquisition, and the scientist himself was summoned to Rome, where he was awaited by the court. In 1633, the scientist was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was replaced by house arrest; he spent the last years of his life without a break in his estate Arcetri near Florence. The circumstances of the case are still unclear. Galileo was accused not just of defending the theory of Copernicus (such an accusation is legally untenable, since the book passed papal censorship), but of violating an earlier ban from 1616 "not to discuss" this theory in any form.

In 1638, Galileo published in Holland, in the Elseviers publishing house, his new book "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs", where in a more mathematical and academic form he presented his thoughts on the laws of mechanics, and the range of problems considered was very wide - from statics and strength of materials to the laws of motion of the pendulum and the laws of fall. Until his death, Galileo did not stop active creative work: he tried to use the pendulum as the main element of the clock mechanism (Christian Huygens soon followed him), a few months before he was completely blind, he discovered the vibration of the moon, and, already completely blind, dictated the latest thoughts on the theory of impact to his students - Vincenzo Viviani and Evangelista Torricelli.

In addition to his great discoveries in astronomy and physics, Galileo went down in history as the creator of the modern method of experimentation. His idea was that in order to study a particular phenomenon, we must create some ideal world (he called it al mondo di carta - "the world on paper"), in which this phenomenon would be maximally freed from extraneous influences. This ideal world is further the object of a mathematical description, and its conclusions are compared with the results of an experiment in which the conditions are as close as possible to ideal ones.

Galileo died at Arcetri on January 8, 1642, after a debilitating fever. In his will, he asked to be buried in the family tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce (Florence), but due to fears of opposition from the church, this was not done. The last will of the scientist was fulfilled only in 1737, his ashes were transported from Arcetri to Florence and buried with honors in the church of Santa Croce next to Michelangelo.

In 1758, the Catholic Church lifted the ban on most works supporting the theory of Copernicus, and in 1835 excluded On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres from the index of banned books. In 1992, Pope John Paul II officially acknowledged that the church had made a mistake by condemning Galileo in 1633.

Galileo Galilei had three children born out of wedlock to the Venetian Marina Gamba. Only the son of Vincenzo, who later became a musician, was recognized by the astronomer as his own in 1619. His daughters, Virginia and Livia, were sent to a convent.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Galileo was born in 1564 in the Italian city of Pisa, in the family of a well-born, but impoverished nobleman Vincenzo Galilei, a prominent music theorist and lute player. The full name of Galileo Galilei: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de Galilei (Italian: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de "Galilei). Representatives of the Galilean family have been mentioned in documents since the 14th century. Several of his direct ancestors were priors (members of the ruling council) of the Florentine Republic, and Galileo's great-great-grandfather , a famous physician, also named Galileo, was elected head of the republic in 1445.

The family of Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati had six children, but four managed to survive: Galileo (the eldest of the children), the daughters of Virginia, Livia and the youngest son of Michelangelo, who later also gained fame as a lute composer. In 1572 Vincenzo moved to Florence, the capital of the Duchy of Tuscany. The Medici dynasty ruling there was known for its wide and constant patronage of the arts and sciences.

Little is known about Galileo's childhood. From an early age, the boy was attracted to art; throughout his life he carried a love of music and drawing, which he mastered perfectly. In his mature years, the best artists of Florence - Cigoli, Bronzino, and others - consulted with him about issues of perspective and composition; Cigoli even claimed that it was to Galileo that he owed his fame. Based on the writings of Galileo, one can also conclude that he had a remarkable literary talent.

Galileo received his primary education in the nearby monastery of Vallombrosa. The boy was very fond of learning and became one of the best students in the class. He considered the possibility of becoming a priest, but his father was against it.

In 1581, the 17-year-old Galileo, at the insistence of his father, entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. At the university, Galileo also attended lectures on geometry (previously he was completely unfamiliar with mathematics) and became so carried away by this science that his father began to fear that this would interfere with the study of medicine.

Galileo was a student for less than three years; during this time, he managed to thoroughly familiarize himself with the works of ancient philosophers and mathematicians and earned a reputation among teachers as an indomitable debater. Even then, he considered himself entitled to have his own opinion on all scientific issues, regardless of traditional authorities.

Probably during these years he became acquainted with the theory of Copernicus. Astronomical problems were then lively discussed, especially in connection with the just carried out calendar reform.

Galileo is rightfully considered the founder of not only experimental, but - to a large extent - theoretical physics. In his scientific method, he consciously combined thoughtful experiment with its rational reflection and generalization, and personally gave impressive examples of such studies. Sometimes, due to a lack of scientific data, Galileo was wrong (for example, in questions about the shape of planetary orbits, the nature of comets, or the causes of tides), but in the vast majority of cases, his method led to the goal. Characteristically, Kepler, who had more complete and accurate data than Galileo, drew correct conclusions when Galileo was wrong.

Galileo Galilei - the greatest thinker of the Renaissance, the founder of modern mechanics, physics and astronomy, a follower of ideas, a predecessor.

The future scientist was born in Italy, the city of Pisa on February 15, 1564. Father Vincenzo Galilei, who belonged to an impoverished family of aristocrats, played the lute and wrote treatises on music theory. Vincenzo was a member of the Florentine Camerata society, whose members sought to revive the ancient Greek tragedy. The result of the activities of musicians, poets and singers was the creation of a new genre of opera at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries.

Mother Giulia Ammannati ran the household and raised four children: the eldest Galileo, Virginia, Livia and Michelangelo. The youngest son followed in the footsteps of his father and subsequently became famous for his composing art. When Galileo was 8 years old, the family moved to the capital of Tuscany, the city of Florence, where the Medici dynasty flourished, known for its patronage of artists, musicians, poets and scientists.

At an early age, Galileo was sent to school at the Benedictine monastery of Vallombrosa. The boy showed the ability to draw, study languages ​​and the exact sciences. From his father, Galileo inherited an ear for music and the ability to compose, but only science really attracted the young man.

Studies

At 17, Galileo travels to Pisa to study medicine at the university. The young man, in addition to the basic subjects and medical practice, became interested in attending mathematical classes. The young man discovered the world of geometry and algebraic formulas, which influenced Galileo's worldview. During the three years that the young man studied at the university, he thoroughly studied the works of ancient Greek thinkers and scientists, and also got acquainted with the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.

After a three-year stay in an educational institution, Galileo was forced to return to Florence due to the lack of funds for further education from his parents. The management of the university did not make any concessions to the talented young man, did not give him the opportunity to complete the course and receive a degree. But Galileo already had an influential patron, the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, who admired Galileo's talents in the field of invention. The aristocrat took care of the ward before the Tuscan Duke Ferdinand I of Medici and provided the young man with a salary at the court of the ruler.

Work at the university

The Marquis del Monte helped the talented scientist get a teaching position at the University of Bologna. In addition to lectures, Galileo leads a fruitful scientific activity. The scientist deals with issues of mechanics and mathematics. In 1689, the thinker returned to the University of Pisa for three years, but now as a teacher of mathematics. In 1692, for 18 years, he moved to the Venetian Republic, the city of Padua.

Combining teaching work at a local university with scientific experiments, Galileo publishes the books "On Motion", "Mechanics", where he refutes ideas. In the same years, one of the important events takes place - the scientist invents a telescope, which made it possible to observe the life of celestial bodies. The discoveries made by Galileo with the help of a new device, the astronomer described in the treatise "Star Messenger".

Returning to Florence in 1610, under the care of the Duke of Tuscany Cosimo de' Medici II, Galileo published the essay "Letters on Sunspots", which was critically received by the Catholic Church. At the beginning of the XVII century, the Inquisition acted on a large scale. And the followers of Copernicus were among the zealots of the Christian faith in a special account.

In 1600, he was already executed at the stake, who never renounced his own views. Therefore, the works of Galileo Galilei were considered provocative by Catholics. The scientist himself considered himself an exemplary Catholic and did not see a contradiction between his work and the Christocentric picture of the world. The astronomer and mathematician considered the Bible to be a book that contributes to the salvation of the soul, and not at all a scientific cognitive treatise.

In 1611, Galileo went to Rome to demonstrate the telescope to Pope Paul V. The scientist made the presentation of the device as correctly as possible and even received the approval of the metropolitan astronomers. But the request of the scientist to make a final decision on the issue of the heliocentric system of the world decided his fate in the eyes of the Catholic Church. The papists declared Galileo a heretic, and the indictment process was launched in 1615. The concept of heliocentrism was officially recognized as false by the Roman Commission in 1616.

Philosophy

The main postulate of Galileo's worldview is the recognition of the objectivity of the world, regardless of subjective perception by a person. The universe is eternal and infinite, initiated by the divine first impulse. Nothing in space disappears without a trace, only a change in the form of matter occurs. The basis of the material world is the mechanical movement of particles, by studying which you can learn the laws of the universe. Therefore, scientific activity should be based on experience and sensory knowledge of the world. According to Galileo, nature is the true subject of philosophy, comprehending which you can get closer to the truth and the fundamental principle of all things.

Galileo was an adherent of two methods of natural science - experimental and deductive. With the help of the first method, the scientist sought to prove the hypotheses, the second assumed a consistent movement from one experience to another, in order to achieve the completeness of knowledge. In his work, the thinker relied primarily on teaching. Criticizing the views, Galileo did not reject the analytical method used by the philosopher of antiquity.

Astronomy

Thanks to the telescope invented in 1609, which was created using a convex lens and a concave eyepiece, Galileo began observing the heavenly bodies. But a three-fold increase in the first device was not enough for a scientist for full-fledged experiments, and soon the astronomer creates a telescope with a 32-fold increase in objects.

Inventions of Galileo Galilei: telescope and first compass

The first luminary, which Galileo studied in detail with the help of a new device, was the Moon. The scientist discovered many mountains and craters on the surface of the Earth's satellite. The first discovery confirmed that the Earth does not differ in physical properties from other celestial bodies. This was the first refutation of Aristotle's statement about the difference between earthly and heavenly nature.

The second major discovery in the field of astronomy concerned the discovery of the four satellites of Jupiter, which in the 20th century was already confirmed by numerous space photos. Thus, he refuted the arguments of the opponents of Copernicus that if the Moon revolves around the Earth, then the Earth cannot revolve around the Sun. Galileo, due to the imperfection of the first telescopes, could not establish the period of rotation of these satellites. The final proof of the rotation of the moons of Jupiter was put forward 70 years later by the astronomer Cassini.

Galileo discovered the presence of sunspots, which he observed for a long time. Having studied the luminary, Galileo concluded that the Sun rotates around its own axis. Observing Venus and Mercury, the astronomer determined that the orbits of the planets are closer to the Sun than the earth. Galileo discovered the rings of Saturn and even described the planet Neptune, but he was not able to advance in these discoveries to the end, due to the imperfection of technology. Watching the stars of the Milky Way through a telescope, the scientist was convinced of their immense number.

By experience and empirical way, Galileo proves that the Earth revolves not only around the Sun, but also around its axis, which further strengthened the astronomer in the correctness of the Copernican hypothesis. In Rome, after a hospitable reception in the Vatican, Galileo becomes a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, which was founded by Prince Cesi.

Mechanics

According to Galileo, the basis of the physical process in nature is mechanical movement. The scientist considered the universe as a complex mechanism consisting of the simplest causes. Therefore, mechanics became the cornerstone in the scientific activity of Galileo. Galileo made many discoveries in the field of mechanics itself, and also determined the direction of future discoveries in physics.

The scientist was the first to establish the law of falling and confirmed it empirically. Galileo discovered the physical formula for the flight of a body moving at an angle to a horizontal surface. The parabolic motion of a thrown object was essential to the calculation of artillery tables.

Galileo formulated the law of inertia, which became the fundamental axiom of mechanics. Another discovery was the substantiation of the principle of relativity for classical mechanics, as well as the calculation of the formula for the oscillation of pendulums. Based on the latest research, the first pendulum clock was invented in 1657 by the physicist Huygens.

Galileo was the first to pay attention to the resistance of the material, which gave impetus to the development of an independent science. The reasoning of the scientist later formed the basis of the laws of physics on the conservation of energy in the field of gravity, the moment of force.

Mathematics

Galileo in mathematical judgments approached the idea of ​​the theory of probability. The scientist outlined his own research on this subject in the treatise “Discourses on the game of dice”, which was published 76 years after the death of the author. Galileo became the author of the famous mathematical paradox about natural numbers and their squares. Galileo recorded the calculations in the work "Conversations about two new sciences". Developments formed the basis of the theory of sets and their classification.

Conflict with the Church

After 1616, a turning point in Galileo's scientific biography, he was forced to go into the shadows. The scientist was afraid to express his own ideas explicitly, so the only book published by Galileo after Copernicus was declared a heretic was the 1623 essay The Assayer. After the change of power in the Vatican, Galileo perked up, he believed that the new Pope Urban VIII would react more favorably to Copernican ideas than his predecessor.

But after the appearance in print in 1632 of the polemical treatise "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World," the Inquisition again brought proceedings against the scientist. The story of the accusation repeated itself, but this time for Galileo everything ended much worse.

Personal life

While living in Padua, young Gallileo met Marina Gamba, a citizen of the Venetian Republic, who became the civil wife of the scientist. Three children were born in the family of Galileo - the son of Vincenzo and the daughters of Virginia and Livia. Since the children appeared outside of a married marriage, the girls subsequently had to become nuns. At the age of 55, Galileo managed to legitimize only his son, so the young man was able to marry and give his father a grandson, who later, like his aunts, became a monk.

Galileo Galilei was outlawed

After the Inquisition outlawed Galileo, he moved to a villa in Arcetri, which was not far from the daughters' monastery. Therefore, quite often, Galileo could see his favorite, the eldest daughter Virginia, until her death in 1634. The younger Livia did not visit her father due to illness.

Death

As a result of a short-term imprisonment in 1633, Galileo renounced the idea of ​​heliocentrism and was placed under indefinite arrest. The scientist was placed under home guard in the city of Arcetri with limited communication. Galileo stayed at the Tuscan villa without a break until the last days of his life. The heart of a genius stopped on January 8, 1642. At the time of death, two students, Viviani and Torricelli, were next to the scientist. During the 30s, the last works of the thinker, Dialogues and Conversations and Mathematical Proofs Concerning Two New Branches of Science, were published in Protestant Holland.

Tomb of Galileo Galilei

After his death, the Catholics forbade the burial of the ashes of Galileo in the crypt of the Basilica of Santa Croce, where the scientist wanted to rest. Justice prevailed in 1737. From now on, the grave of Galileo is located next to. After another 20 years, the church rehabilitated the idea of ​​heliocentrism. Galileo's acquittal had to wait much longer. The error of the Inquisition was only recognized in 1992 by Pope John Paul II.