The Life and Brilliance of Galileo Galilei

Life of Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15th, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. Throughout his life, he made various contributions to the world of mathematics and other areas such as astronomy, physics, and philosophy. He worked at two universities in his lifetime. The two being The University of Pisa and The University of Padua. Young Galileo found inspiration in Ostilio Ricci, who was a very well-respected mathematician in his time. Bewildered by young Galileo’s curiosity Ostilio agreed to take Galileo under his wing and tutor him privately.

Galileo has been called of a variety of things such as “the father of science” and “the father of modern physics”. As you know science and physics both do revolve around precise calculation and formulas. Galileo once said, “Mathematics is the alphabet in which God has written the universe”. In Galileo’s time, the study of thematics, astronomy, and science were all very closely related. These three studies led man to many profound discoveries.

One day when praying in a chapel, he watched as a lamplighter lit the chandeliers. The lamplighter would use a pulley system to pull the lamps closer to him with a rod. After lighting them he let them swing in place and as they swung in place Galileo timed the swings with his heartbeat, at this moment Galileo discovered the law of the pendulum. This is one of GalGalileo’sst most famous discoveries and his first discovery at that.

At age 25, Galileo was given the position of lecturer in math at the University of Pisa where he once previously attended.

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After acquiring this position he then was selected as the Chair of Mathematics. As Ostillio educated him in geometry and applied mathematics, he would stop showing up to his other classes which eventually leads to him being kicked out of the school he was attending at the time even though his family was having trouble paying tuition for him to go there. So then for the next four years, Galileo earned his keep by working in Florence as a private tutor in mathematics. In his free time, he also managed to keep on making experiments and inventions. One of his inventions was a device used to measure the relative weights of alloys in a metal. This invention of his improved on the work of the ancient mathematician Archimedes.

They also distinguished themselves in a contest to determine the location, shape, and dimensions of Hell which is portrayed in Dante’s famous novel “Inferno”. This earned Galileo the praise of the well-noted Jesuit mathematician, Christopher Calvus. Galileo did not just want praise he wanted his patronage as he aspired to become a university professor but had been met with repeated failure.

By 1589, he had been rejected for the position all across Nothern Italy. In despair, Galileo considered leaving his residence in Constantinople and going in search of employment. He finally landed a position in teaching Mathematics at the University of Pisa. Then that summer he never renewed his contract so he was out of a job again but by now he had already established a reputation as a great contributor to the mathematical world and field. He would then carry this reputation with him as the Venetian Senate chose him as the chair of Mathematics at the University of Padua.

Galileo related many other topics to mathematics such as astronomy, gravity, music to physical science, and philosophy. He compared math to astronomy when he visited Rome to demonstrate his new and improved version of the telescope. This special telescope improved on the previous version of the telescope improving its range multiplied by nine making it see things at an increased size of 32. He used this telescope to observe the planets. Galileo compared math to gravity because he made the original contributions to the science of motion using various formulas. Galileo also built upon the square root method used by Archimedes and used it as an inverse

I learned much more than I would have thought after researching Galileo. He is a very insightful mathematician and a genius at that. That is how he contributed to the mathematics community during his life. It is a summary of his life and how mathematics was key in all of his studies ranging from astronomy to philosophy and its law of nature using the parabola.