GALILEO GALILEI 1564 - 1642
The Life History And Contribution of a Mathematician Whom I Admire.
Throughout the history of mankind, one thing more than anything else has always accompanied advancements of any nature. It is the disruption of the status quo by the very rebels who bring about the change or who die trying. There is never any deviation from this set pattern, as any broad-minded student of history will confirm. The only possible variations are the degree to which the rebel party is conscious of actually being one (a rebel party).
A very special man born a long time ago in Italy, was one such person, a rebel against the mental chains that incarcerated the minds of this era. The man, Galileo Galilei.
Towards the winter of 1609, Galileo Galilei turned his eyes and his telescopes to the skies.
What awaited him there was a vista, a pallette, upon which God's every brush stroke could be seen for the first time by a mortal man. With breath-taking clarity he turned the instrument to the golden orb that has circled our world since the beginning of time. And for the first time in mankind's history, human eyes gazed upon the pitted, scarred, mountainous, dry (the list is endless, all the features of the moon waiting since eternity, to divulge themselves upon the eyes of a man brave enough, strong enough and, yes even lucky enough to look upon her face) surface of our sole natural satellite. Then he turned his "magic eye" to certain cloudy apparitions always seen in the night sky but never understood. Children used to say that the milk of gods had spilled in heaven. The Milky Way turned out to be distinct, individual stars so far away, yet so close when considered on an extragalactic scale.
On the 7th day of January, 1610, Galileo achieved another first when he set eyes on Jupiter and spotted 4 of the Jovian satellites through hhis telescope. Naming them Io, Calisto, Ganymede and Europa, Galileo saw the importance and gravity of his discovery. Now he had concrete proof that earth was not the only planet which had a satellite orbiting it. Many might miss the significance of this discovery, if the total situation is left unexplained. Just like Aristotle's theory about different rates of falling, Ptolemy too made his own contribution to the pseudo-science of that period. In the second century A.D., he put forward the teaching that the earth was the centre of the universe. This fallacy was accepted by virtue of the fact that all heavenly bodies seem to rise and dip, above and below, our horizon, as though orbiting Earth. The Roman Catholic Church, as well as Protestant Leaders such as Calvin and Luther, not only accepted this teaching as the truth but also condemned Galileo for making assertions that were, according to them, against the Holy Scriptures.
It has been stated that Galileo's chief claim in astronomy was that he saw implications of and the wide frontiers opened by someone else's invention. He even had the imagination and optimism to let the general public in on his fantastic new findings. He published them in a short pamphlet entitled, "The Message from the Stars" in 1610.
In 1613, Galileo published his "Letters on the Sunspots", in which he made it perfectly clear in no uncertain terms that he supported Copernicus's many claims, all of which were in direct conflict with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. This religious body was at that time the most powerful and influential in the world. Needless to say his "Letters" caused a stir in that extremely orthodox body. A stir which could quite safely be analogously linked to a volcanic eruption the intensity of several dozen Mount Vesuviuses !
In his "Dialogue on the Two Principal Systems of the World", he discussed both Aristotelianism and Copernicanism. He was called up by the Roman Inquisition and was ordered under threat of physical torture to deny his beliefs and to turn his back on Copernicus's theories and anything else the Church deemed necessary. The Roman Inquisition existed for 300 years and was directly responsible for the deaths of 30 million people. In short it was not something people tangled with choice. Galileo broke down and agreed. He was led home and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Before you start making noble accusations, saying that a man ought to be willing to die for what he believes in, consider the down-to-earth facts. Here you have a 68 years old man faced by sadistical tortureres who would just as soon pull out a boy's tongue as swat a fly. Can you blame him for giving in ? (Incidentally the document which was the original reason for his apprehension, and knowledge of which he emphatically denied turned out to be a "plant". In short he was framed.)
Under house arrest, the old man refused to stop his work and continued to gazed at the heavens through his telescopes with failing eyes right up to 1637 when he went totally blind. Even this did not deter him from writing. He published a thesis on mechanics in 1638 which was later used by Newton in his development of that branch of mathematics. Galileo Galilei kept on working and studying right up to 1642 when he was forced to stop, not by men this time but by his Maker, he died.
His work however continued on as a permanent scientific legacy to mankind. Despite the all out efforts of protagonists to repudiate its validity, it continued to shine the way for man in his quest for a better understanding of his Universe. Galileo believed that all the secrets of the Universe could finally be unearthed by man because of its logical and consistent make up. The Mathematician who had done so much for science had the final say in the entire matter, he maintained that GOD was a logical master mathematician who constructed the entire universe as a PERFECT MATHEMATICAL MODEL.
by D. R.
Throughout the history of mankind, one thing more than anything else has always accompanied advancements of any nature. It is the disruption of the status quo by the very rebels who bring about the change or who die trying. There is never any deviation from this set pattern, as any broad-minded student of history will confirm. The only possible variations are the degree to which the rebel party is conscious of actually being one (a rebel party).
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Towards the winter of 1609, Galileo Galilei turned his eyes and his telescopes to the skies.
What awaited him there was a vista, a pallette, upon which God's every brush stroke could be seen for the first time by a mortal man. With breath-taking clarity he turned the instrument to the golden orb that has circled our world since the beginning of time. And for the first time in mankind's history, human eyes gazed upon the pitted, scarred, mountainous, dry (the list is endless, all the features of the moon waiting since eternity, to divulge themselves upon the eyes of a man brave enough, strong enough and, yes even lucky enough to look upon her face) surface of our sole natural satellite. Then he turned his "magic eye" to certain cloudy apparitions always seen in the night sky but never understood. Children used to say that the milk of gods had spilled in heaven. The Milky Way turned out to be distinct, individual stars so far away, yet so close when considered on an extragalactic scale.
On the 7th day of January, 1610, Galileo achieved another first when he set eyes on Jupiter and spotted 4 of the Jovian satellites through hhis telescope. Naming them Io, Calisto, Ganymede and Europa, Galileo saw the importance and gravity of his discovery. Now he had concrete proof that earth was not the only planet which had a satellite orbiting it. Many might miss the significance of this discovery, if the total situation is left unexplained. Just like Aristotle's theory about different rates of falling, Ptolemy too made his own contribution to the pseudo-science of that period. In the second century A.D., he put forward the teaching that the earth was the centre of the universe. This fallacy was accepted by virtue of the fact that all heavenly bodies seem to rise and dip, above and below, our horizon, as though orbiting Earth. The Roman Catholic Church, as well as Protestant Leaders such as Calvin and Luther, not only accepted this teaching as the truth but also condemned Galileo for making assertions that were, according to them, against the Holy Scriptures.
It has been stated that Galileo's chief claim in astronomy was that he saw implications of and the wide frontiers opened by someone else's invention. He even had the imagination and optimism to let the general public in on his fantastic new findings. He published them in a short pamphlet entitled, "The Message from the Stars" in 1610.
In 1613, Galileo published his "Letters on the Sunspots", in which he made it perfectly clear in no uncertain terms that he supported Copernicus's many claims, all of which were in direct conflict with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. This religious body was at that time the most powerful and influential in the world. Needless to say his "Letters" caused a stir in that extremely orthodox body. A stir which could quite safely be analogously linked to a volcanic eruption the intensity of several dozen Mount Vesuviuses !
In his "Dialogue on the Two Principal Systems of the World", he discussed both Aristotelianism and Copernicanism. He was called up by the Roman Inquisition and was ordered under threat of physical torture to deny his beliefs and to turn his back on Copernicus's theories and anything else the Church deemed necessary. The Roman Inquisition existed for 300 years and was directly responsible for the deaths of 30 million people. In short it was not something people tangled with choice. Galileo broke down and agreed. He was led home and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Before you start making noble accusations, saying that a man ought to be willing to die for what he believes in, consider the down-to-earth facts. Here you have a 68 years old man faced by sadistical tortureres who would just as soon pull out a boy's tongue as swat a fly. Can you blame him for giving in ? (Incidentally the document which was the original reason for his apprehension, and knowledge of which he emphatically denied turned out to be a "plant". In short he was framed.)
Under house arrest, the old man refused to stop his work and continued to gazed at the heavens through his telescopes with failing eyes right up to 1637 when he went totally blind. Even this did not deter him from writing. He published a thesis on mechanics in 1638 which was later used by Newton in his development of that branch of mathematics. Galileo Galilei kept on working and studying right up to 1642 when he was forced to stop, not by men this time but by his Maker, he died.
His work however continued on as a permanent scientific legacy to mankind. Despite the all out efforts of protagonists to repudiate its validity, it continued to shine the way for man in his quest for a better understanding of his Universe. Galileo believed that all the secrets of the Universe could finally be unearthed by man because of its logical and consistent make up. The Mathematician who had done so much for science had the final say in the entire matter, he maintained that GOD was a logical master mathematician who constructed the entire universe as a PERFECT MATHEMATICAL MODEL.
by D. R.
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