Mid-Life

In 1592, Galileo moved to the University of Padua, where he took the post of a

geometry, mathematics, and astronomy professor. During his time at the university,

Galileo took the spot as head of the family, due to the passing of his father, Vincenzo

Galilei. Thus, Galileo was hard-pressed economically and could not only depend on his

university salary, and took upon tutoring private pupils. Furthermore, he had an affair

with Marina Gamba, and fathered three children, Virginia (Maria Celeste), Livia

(Arcangela), and Vincenzio.

Galileo taught at the University of Padua until 1610, and during the eighteen-year

span, the Tuscan found many of the things he is famous for today. In 1593, Galileo

invented the thermometer, which found temperature by using theories of expansion and

contraction to move water up and down a tube. Two years later, Galileo moved on into a

mathematical development, and in 1583 he devised an improved version of the military

compass, allowing gunners and surveyors to elevate and load cannons safely, and led to

his works on circular motion.

In 1609, Galileo determined the law of falling bodies, which states that the distance

fallen by a body is directly proportional to the square of the elapsed time, simply (d x t2).

Furthermore, in that same year, he concluded that the trajectory of a projectile is actually

a parabola, contrary to the previous thinking of forced-to-natural motion. Both of

Galileo’s conclusions contradicted the conclusions of Greek physicist Aristotle, to whom

the disproved laws belonged.

In that very same year, Galileo heard of an invention known as the telescope. Using

lenses from nearby glass stores, Galileo constructed a state-of-the-art, eight-powered

refracting telescope that earned him lifetime tenure and doubled salary from the Venetian

Senate. Galileo utilized the telescope to examine the night sky in ways that no one had

ever done before, and made detailed sketches of the phases of the moon, and thus, once

again, disproving a popular belief. This time, in his observations, Galileo showed that the

surface was not smooth and even; it was, in fact, rugged and rough. His 20x telescope

was purely revolutionary.

In early 1610, Galileo discovered three objects near the planet Jupiter that seemed to

move in an unknown motion in the sky. At first they were believed to be fixed stars near

the planet, but after the discovery of a fourth object, Galileo had doubts. Further

observation led to the discovery of the four main moons of Jupiter: Ganymede, Io,

Europa, and Callisto. Galileo named them, at first, the Cosmica Sidera, or Cosimo’s

Stars, attributed to the grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de’Medici, but later changed the

name to Medicea Sidera to include the entire Medici name.

The impact of the discovery was phenomenal. The conclusion that there were objects

that revolved around other celestial objects, in essence, disproved the Ptolematic system

of the universe, which stated that all celestial bodies revolved around the Earth.

Furthermore, it deemed that not all celestial objects could be seen with the naked eye,

which cast shadows of doubt on all astronomical theories that the Church held true.

Galileo published his book Sidereus Nuncius (The Sidereal Messenger), and the

publication earned him an appointment as the mathematician and philosopher of the

grand duke of Tuscany.