NEWSMAKER FROM THE PAST
Galileo
“The Bible tells us how to make it to Heaven, not how Heaven is made.” 1615, Cesare Cardinal Baronio
In 1633 the Roman Catholic church hauled Galileo Galilei, an astronomer, before the Pope’s court, the Inquisition, and forced him to deny what he had seen with his own eyes: the earth revolves around the sun. More than 300 years later the same church pardoned him and acknowledged the truth of his discovery. Despite the censorship of Galileo’s ideas, they lived on in other people’s writings and discoveries.
When Galileo came up with observations about the stars, both ancient philosophers and the Church had believed that the earth was the center of the universe for several centuries. By arguing with them, Galileo threatened the authority of a religious system that asked its followers to accept many beliefs on blind faith. Disagreeing with the church was called heresy, a serious crime punishable by torture and sometimes death. To avoid punishment, Galileo bowed before the charge of heresy and denied his observations, but later he passed his ideas on to his son and others.
Galileo made his first discovery at the age of 20 when he timed a lamp swinging above his head using the beat of his pulse. He observed that no matter how wide the lamp swung, it always took the same amount of time. This was called the Law of the Pendulum. Clocks kept time using pendulums until the 1950’s when electricity replaced pendulums as regulators. You can still see the law of the pendulum in action in a grandfather clock.
Galileo used his observational powers and scientific reason to discover other laws and tools over the next few decades. He found that objects of unequal weight drop at the same speed, The Law of Falling Objects. He invented a thermometer to measure heat, a hydrostatic balance to measure the gravity of materials like gold and silver, and a microscope to look at insects. But the discoveries he found using a telescope shook the world he lived in more than any others did.
When Galileo heard of a spyglass made by a Dutch eyeglass maker, he was fascinated. He built one for himself that magnified objects thirty-three times their size and turned it to the sky, creating the first astronomical telescope. He published his findings in a book called The Starry Messenger and became famous. After a few decades he published another book that became a best seller. In it three characters debated whether the center of the universe was the earth or the sun. One of the characters that was portrayed as ignorant seemed to be the Pope. Galileo had gone too far. The Pope called him before the Inquisition.
Although he took back what he said under pressure of possible death, Galileo was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. Four years later he went blind from an infection. Fortunately his son and two other assistants helped him continue to write – though not about the sky. He wrote about force and motion and his work became the basis for some of Isaac Newton’s ideas.
Galileo’s influence extends beyond the realm of astronomy. Sometimes he is called the father of modern science, because he thought it was important to test ideas through experiments, before he accepted them as the truth.
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32:39N, 105:42W
Eric
Fiegelson, an Astronomer and Astro-Physicist at Penn State University,
sure knows a lot about the sky. Click below to see and hear
what he has to say. 
IMAGINE
THAT!
LIGHTEN
UP!
PICTURE
THIS!