Galileo was one of the chief founders of modern science. His principal scientific studies were in astronomy and mechanics. He is famous for his observations with the newly invented telescope and for his work on the laws of motion. Galileo is also remembered for his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. He thought himself to be a loyal Roman Catholic. However, he was to find severe restrictions placed on his work, and his writings were condemned by the church.

His disregard of conservative beliefs brought him into conflict with special members of the Vatican, and he spent his old age in disgrace. Galileo developed a new way of approaching the problem of free fall and linking it to the general problem of acceleration. He then applied this to the special case of a falling body.

In Galileo‘s time the greatest unresolved problem in astronomy had to do with the arrangement of the bodies forming the planetary system. The two most opposed sets of ideas were earth-centered and sun centered. The sun centered idea had already been worked out by the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus.

All these observations cast out doubt on traditional doctrines about the heavenly bodies. Galileo cited his discovery of the moons of Jupiter to support the Copernican theory. His telescope was showing heavenly bodies that did not revolve around the earth.

Galileo published an important book in 1632 named Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Galileo was summoned to Rome to be tried for his writings which the Roman Catholic Church didn’t like. In 1633 he was convicted and sentenced to house arrest. He became blind shortly after completing his second book, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences. The book was smuggled to Holland, and was published in 1639. Galileo died three years later.