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Astronomy
10, Spring 2000 |
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Galileo
1564-1642AD
-
professor, engineer, scientist, writer, "heretic"
one
of the first to really use experiment to deduce
physical
laws (laws of motion, velocity, acceleration,
inertia,
pendulums, falling bodies)
- brought
telescopes to Astronomy
-
after being skeptical, advanced Copernican model because of what he saw
in the sky
Important
Discoveries
Celestial
Bodies are not perfect unblemished spheres
spots
on Sun;?ears? on Saturn
craters
and mountains on Moon, indeed the
Moon
looks
like it could be "earth-like"
The
Earth is not the only center of rotation
phases
of Venus imply it goes around the Sun
moons
of Jupiter clearly follow it around in orbits
The
Milky Way is made of faint stars (and there are very many of them); there
are worlds not visible to our unaided eyes
Galileo
was an early practitioner of the "scientific method", and was dangerous
to those who would assert truths, or take everything on faith (but actually
the Church persecution of him was more political than philosophical and
he was originally a friend of the Pope's)