The Life and Times of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

By Marguerite Badger

The Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, and his scientific ideas challenged the social structure of his time. The religious and scholarly reaction to Galileo’s discoveries were expressed with hostility or humor. His ideas were said to be either "false" or "ridiculous."

In my research on the history of Galileo as a scientist and a person, I found that he was mild and very intellectual. But he was not beyond being rebellious or stubborn especially when he was fighting to bring science out of the dark ages to the new age of enlightenment. That’s when the church got upset at Galileo, for the church was against new ideas.

Now Galileo was not a young scientist when he discovered his first three discoveries:

1. the laws of the motion of pendulums.

2. the motion of falling objects.

3. the principles of floatation.

His college colleagues and the church said to Galileo, "Can you prove your theory on these discoveries?" And, Galileo said, "Yes, I can." He then went out and showed to all of the people that mathematical reasoning, tests, and facts about these matters were true. Then Galileo refined the telescope and used it to help prove that the earth really moved around the sun. This one discovery was the most controversial one of all in Galileo’s time which I think is what brought about the inquisition in 1633. Galileo was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. He endured all of this. He even smuggled all of his works by ship to England which not long after brought him fame and helped future scientists to come.

The End

Maguerite J. Badger

Sept 7, 2002