Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) was born in Pisa where he entered the University at the age of
17, first as a medical student and then turning to mathematics and continuing his education
at Padua. In 1609 he constructed an improved version of a new Dutch
invention – the telescope. He was the first person to use the refracting telescope to make important astronomical observations. These observations convinced him of the accuracy of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory of the motion of the planets (that the planets revolve around the sun) rather than the Catholic Church’s approved theory that the planets revolved around the Earth. By this time he was a professor of astronomy at the University of Pisa and, as such required to teach the Church’s approved doctrine. His defence against thinking for himself rather than thinking what the Church told him to think was the reasonable; ‘I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use’. His refusal to teach what he was told led in 1633 to the Penitentiary College (otherwise known as the Inquisition) convicting him of the crime of heresy, forcing him to publicly withdraw his support of Copernicus and sentencing him to life imprisonment. Because of his old age this was moderated to house imprisonment. He spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest at his villa in Florence. His originality as a scientist was
in his methodology: that of reducing problems to their basics, applying commonsense and logic and then analysing and resolving them according to simple mathematical descriptions. His ‘Law of Inertia’ was the foundation of Isaac Newton’s ‘First Law of Motion’.
GALILEI, Galileo
Opere di Galileo Galilei divise in quatro tomi. Vol. 1.
Nella stampiera del seminario, Gio. Manf. . Padova, 1744 601p. ill.
GALILEI, Galileo
Opere di Galileo Galilei divise in quatro tomi. Vol. 2.
Nella stampiera del seminario, Gio. Manf. . Padova, 1744. 564p ill
GALILEI, Galileo
Opere di Galileo Galilei divise in quatro tomi. Vol. 3.
Nella stampiera del seminario, Gio. Manf. . Padova, 1744. 486p. ill.
GALILEI, Galileo
Opere di Galileo Galilei divise in quatro tomi. Vol. 4.
Nella stampiera del seminario, Gio. Manf. . Padova, 1744 342p. ill.
The four volumes on Galileo’s philosophy and mathematics are written in the form of dialogues and letters and the first volume includes a life of Galileo.