Galileo Galilei was born near Pisa on 15th February 1564. He was a son of a wool trader and a musician who anticipated for his son to study medicine at the university as he thought there massive money in the medicine sector. Galileo started studying at the age of eleven where he joined the Jesuit monastery. At the age of 17 he went to the university and began studying medicine but he did not complete his first year in the medicine class. Instead, he changed the course to mathematics and philosophy (MacLachlan, 1997). He was an extremely keen and bright student in class and he passed on the units that he took at the university level. However, he consistently argued with his professors following his extensive research on mathematics and he felt that they were not educated enough to teach him accordingly.
Galileo had extensive passion for mathematics and he felt he could exemplary well in the subject. He remained focused in class and he was always the best in any mathematics unit that was offered during the course. His expertise in mathematics made him extremely famous among fellow students and he felt he had a role to playing making more students develop positive attitude towards mathematics. Therefore, he offered free tutorial classes to fellow students as well as junior students at the University. This created his fame and the school thought that Galileo was exerting pressure to students to a point where some students would avoid classes and attend tutorials by Galileo. Therefore, the school thought of Galileo as an undisciplined student and the university denied Galileo the degree (Palmieri, 2008).
At the age of 25, Galileo had officially launched his career and had begun to bear fruits of the courses that he studied in the university. He was given an opportunity in the University of Pisa to become a professor of mathematics. How he got back to the same university that had denied him the degree remains concrete explanation of his prowess in the mathematics field. He had severally tried to join the university with no fruits since had bad reputation among professors who could have referred him to certain university following his consistent arguments with them on certain issues while he was a student and as he tried to engineer certain inventions. It is through a literature teacher who never knew him that he joined the University of Pisa as a lecturer. During a literature discussion Galileo gave an outstanding explanation on a subject based on scientific understanding that left the entire congregation appreciating his outstanding ideas and explanations. This formed the basis of the literature lecturer developing interest in the uniqueness that was in Galileo (Palmieri, 2008).
However, he did not take much time at Pisa since his arrogance and intimidation for other people had convinced Pisa University not to renew his contract. Therefore, in 1592, he was requested by the University of Padua to become a professor of mathematics at the university. He did not turn down the offer and he immediately signed the contract. He remained at the University of Padua up to 1610 after which he resigned to deal with other projects that seemed extreme and helpful to the society according to him (Palmieri, 2008).
While at the University of Padua Galileo was working on various experiments that included the falling speed of objects, pendulums, and mechanics. These experiments were extremely vital to him as he believed they could shape the role he was to play in the world of physics. He paid extensive attention to any observation he made on any experiment that he conducted as he believed there were massive lessons learnt that would bring up another invention(Caffarelli, 2009).
The Law of the Pendulum by Galileo Galilei has been extremely significant in the physics world. While he was 20 years old, he noticed a lamp swinging above him in a cathedral. Through his curiosity, he tried to find the time it took for the lamp to swing to and fro using his pulse to time small and large swings. At this point, he came up with an idea that no one else had ever discovered that the swing periods took the same time. This invention made Galileo extremely famous (MacLachlan, 1997). The invention has been extremely useful in other inventions like that of regulation of clocks.
When Galileo went back to Pisa there was intensive discussion on one of Aristotle’s laws of nature, which dictates that heavier elements fell in a higher speed that lighter objects. People had already believed in the conclusion by Aristotle but Galileo ad a different idea. Therefore, he engaged in an experiment to test the conclusions. Therefore, he needed to drop the objects form a high point. Therefore, he chose to use the Tower of Pisa which is 54 meters tall. He carried different balls of varying weight and size to the top of the building and dumped them from the top. They all got to the ground at the same time (Caffarelli, 2009). Therefore, he challenged Aristotle’s conclusion.
Following the adverse frustrations that he had posed to his colleagues he did not find security in being a teacher. Therefore, he decided to come up with an element that that would give him money all times. Therefore, he came up with the rudimentary thermometer that did not fetch him a lot of profit as it was found ingenious. However, in 1596 he succeeded by coming up with a compass that the military could use to aim cannonballs accurately. In 1597, Civilian version was later developed by Galileo for land surveying (Palmieri, 2008).
In 1609, he had of an invention in Holland of a telescope. Although, he had not seen the invented telescope he developed a superior version and brought other astronomical discoveries. He wanted to challenge the Dutch spectacle maker who had come up with the device. In an experiment that took approximately 24 hours, Galileo came up with a 3-power telescope (MacLachlan, 1997).
The telescope brought up intensive inventions by Galileo. He used the telescope to view skies through which he discovered space bodies like the Moon, and other planets like Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. His inventions were detailed in the physical appearance of the objects that he observed through the telescope. He also came up with the argument that the earth went around the sun while people believed that the sun went around the earth. This brought in massive disagreements and the Church stopped him from campaigning for his invention. Since he was a Christian, he did not move ahead to criticize what the Bible recorded on that the sun revolved around the sun. Through the observations that he made on the movements of Jupiter and the moon, he developed measurements that could have been used in the navigation by captains in the sea (MacLachlan, 1997).
At 68 years while he was old and sick, Galileo was threatened with torture and he retracted from his argument and supported that the sun revolved around the world. He later died in 1642 while he remained in the experimental world of science occurrences (Caffarelli, 2009). Therefore, Galileo died a hero with extensive inventions borrowed from his experiments and inventions. Therefore, he was named the first physicist.
Works Cited
Caffarelli, Roberto. Galileo Galilei and motion: a reconstruction of 50 years of experiments and discoveries. Berlin: Springer ;, 2009. Print.
MacLachlan, James H.. Galileo Galilei: first physicist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.
Palmieri, Paolo. Reenacting Galileo's experiments: rediscovering the techniques of seventeenth-century science. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. Print.
