I am Galileo
Hey, Kids! I am
Galileo, a scientist, mathematician, and astronomer.
I was born on 15th February, 1564 in Pisa,
Italy, the same place where the leaning tower of Pisa is standing.
My father was a
famous music teacher and musician.
I grew up with
my brothers during the Italian Renaissance.
We moved to the city of Florence when I was
ten years old.
It was in
Florence that I began my education at the Camaldolese monastery.
Even I was a
musician and an excellent student.
At first, I
wanted to become a doctor rand hence went to the University of Pisa to study medicine.
Later, I became interested in physics and
mathematics.
One of my first
scientific observations was on a lamp hanging from the ceiling of the
cathedral.
I noticed that
despite how far the lamp swung it always took the same amount of time to swing
back and forth.
My fellow
professors did not agree with this.
Soon I left the
university and got a job as a teacher.
I also began to
experiment with pendulums, levers, balls, and other objects and tried to
describe how they moved using mathematic equations.
Do you know
what other scientific achievements I have done when I was alive?
No? Then let me
tell you.
Pisa Tower
Experiment – During my time people thought that if you dropped two items of
different weights, but the same size and shape, the heavier item would hit the
ground first.
I disproved
them by going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropping two balls of
the same size, but different weights.
They landed at
the same time.
These
experiments made some people angry because they didn't want the traditional
views to be questioned.
So, I moved
from Pisa to the University of Padua, where I was permitted to freely
experiment and discuss new ideas.
Copernicus was
an astronomer who lived in the early 1500s.
He claimed that
the Sun was the centre of the universe.
But most people
believed that the Earth was the centre.
So, I began to
study Copernicus' work and felt that he was correct.
But people did
not want to believe that.
Telescope –
Later, I heard of an invention from Holland called the telescope that could
make faraway items appear much closer.
So, I decided
to build my own better telescope and began to use it to view the planets.
Soon my version of the telescope was used throughout Europe.
I made several
excellent discoveries using my telescopes like the four large moons around Jupiter and the phases of the planet Venus.
I also
discovered sunspots and learned that the Moon was not smooth but was covered
with craters.
All my
discoveries made the powerful Catholic Church angry and they sentenced me to
life in prison, but later allowed him to live at my home under house arrest.
Soon, my health
deteriorated, I became blind, and then I died on January 8, 1642.
