Galileo
Galileo was born in 1564 in Italy, and died there in 1642, aged 77 years old. You might not know much about him, but the great scientist Einstein called Galileo the ‘father of modern science’, and most other scientists agree with this.
So what did Galileo do? Science was very simple in those days, and no one knew much about the stars and planets. Galileo improved the telescope, and began to seriously study the stars and planets, and made many new discoveries. He was one of the first to say that the earth moved around the sun, rather than the sun moving around the earth, and to say that the laws of nature could be based on mathematics. He began using mathematics and performing experiments to make some theories about the movement of objects. He began using simple machines, and invented several new ones.
All this might sound rather straightforward now, but in Galileo’s time, superstition was rife. Almost everyone believed that God made everything, and we should never question God. Galileo was one of the first men to break this tradition. He showed that people could understand the world around them through mathematics and science, and that the church could be wrong. At that time, the church was very powerful, playing a big role in society, and its members did not like the way Galileo made them seem less important. Thus, Galileo’s life was difficult, even dangerous, and he was carefully watched.
So, although Galileo did not make any single really great achievement, he was one the first believers in the scientific method, and he set the path for others, and for this reason he is considered one of the greatest scientists of all time.
Question Time
How did Einstein describe Galileo? ……………………………………….………………
What did Galileo use to study the stars? ……………………………………….....……...
What did he invent? ………………………………………………….…………….……….
How did the church feel about Galileo? ……………………………………….………….
What did they do to Galileo? ……………………………………….………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
Telescope
Law
Experiment
Theory
Superstition
Rife
Tradition
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