Galileo Galilei
Passion is the genesis of genius.

by Preston Gardner | Social Studies Mr. Rymer, 6th Period | March 5, 2015

Galileo Galilei | References Hightower, P.H., (2009).
Galileo “Astronomer and Physicist”
. Springfield, NJ: Enslow
Publishers.
Heilbron, J.L., (2012). I.Galileo
. New York, NY: Random House Children's Books.
Helden, A.V., & Elizabeth, E.B., (1995).
The Galileo Project. Galileo.rice.edu.
Lavender, G.L., (2013).
Did Galileo invent the telescope? http://www.spaceanswers.com/astronomy/did­galileo­invent­the­telescope/ by Preston Gardner | Social Studies Mr. Rymer, 6th Period | March 5, 2015

with a crack of the stair, I took step by step up the leaning tower. I leaned out the side of the tilted tower and dropped two cannon balls providing that they fell from the tower at the same rate regardless of their mass. It only took them a few second to smash the grass flat. Then I proved the thoughts of other scientist wrong.
I was born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. I was the first of seven children of
Vincenzo Galilei, my father and Giulia degli Ammannati, my mother. We were very poor, however I did eventually get an education. When I was about eight, my father moved the family to Florence, another town in Italy. I moved into a nearby community with the thought of becoming a monk, but I left there when I was 15 because my father disapproved me of becoming one. In November of 1581, my father and I enrolled in the University of Pisa School of
Medicine because he wanted me to become a doctor to carry on the family fortune. He thought that I should be able to care for the family when he died. I had other plans and in early 1583, I began spending my time with the mathematics professors instead of the medical ones. When my father learned of this, he was furious and traveled 60 miles from Florence to Pisa just to confront me.. “The Grand Duke's Mathematician” intervened and persuaded my father to allow me to study mathematics on the condition that after one year, I’d be finished with school. In the spring of 1585, I skipped my final exams and left the university without a degree. I was rebelling against my father’s wishes yet again. I began finding work as a math tutor. In November of 1589,
I found a position as a professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa, the same one I had left without a degree four years before. People said I was a brilliant teacher.

by Preston Gardner | Social Studies Mr. Rymer, 6th Period | March 5, 2015

In 1589, I make my famous “velocity experiment”, dropping objects off the leaning tower to disprove Aristotle's theory that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. I provided things that proved Copernicus’ hypothesis was correct, which was that the earth is not the center of the universe, but that the sun is. I also gave a correct explanation for how objects moved on the surface of the earth and gravity. I did not invent the telescope but I did make an telescope lense that had 3’s the normal sight. I was the first person to use the telescope to study space. The telescope I used was basically a cheap toy. I observed the sun through my telescope and noticed little dark patches that we know of as sunspots. I came up with a theory that the sun rotated on an axis. With this theory, I believed that the earth may rotate on an axis also. I also observed 4 very bright sources of light that revolved around Jupiter. These 4 points of light turned out to be the brightest moons of Jupiter. These 4 moons are sometimes called the Galilean moons, named after me. I also