Great physicists who were not known during his lifetime

It is unfortunate that many of the most prominent physicists were not recognized for their work until after their deaths

Transcript

1. Great physicists who were not known during his lifetime Life of Galileo Galilei was not simple, predictable, or rational. Being as great as he was, Galileo, for example, did not accept Kepler's laws of planetary motion. At the same time, he believed with all his heart in the Copernicus`s theory of the solar system. Because of his personal belief in the heliocentric doctrine, Galileo was heavily criticized by the church, and in 1616 was sentenced by the Inquisition to life imprisonment in his home in Florence. It was outrageous that a person such as Galileo was forced to spend the remainder of his days in house exile. Nevertheless, he continued to work and write books while in exile. One of the books was the famous "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems."
2. Galileo died in 1642 after having suffered blindness in the last four years of his life and leaving his inventions, discoveries, books, and his devotion to science to future generations, that is, to us. The most substantial part of his work undoubtedly consisted of his establishment of mechanics as a science. The idea of a universal force of gravity led him to the statement of constant gravitational acceleration. Galileo was the first person who declared mathematics to be the language of physics and other sciences. Galileo created the method of modern experiment with all its phases: hypothesis, analysis, theoretical deduction, etc. He applied this method to check laws of falling objects and the motion of a projectile. Remarkable results were achieved by Galileo in astronomy as well. For example, after he learned about Hans Lippershey's newly invented telescope, Galileo built his own version of the instrument, but with higher magnification.
3. Galileo's phenomenal observational skills and his new astronomical telescope led him in 1609-1610 to a series of beautiful and very important discoveries. Galilean moons of Jupiter, Galilean telescope, Galileo's pendulum, Galilean experimental method, Galileo spacecraft, and even Galileo High School in San Francisco! What do all these different words have in common? Yes, you are absolutely right, they were named after a famous scientist, an inquisitive person, and an outstanding mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who lived over three hundred years ago. Let's try to understand why, after so many years, we still remember this man, trust and respect his ideas, study his theories and discoveries, repeat his experiments, and still give his name to different objects and institutions. Galileo Galilei, who was generally known only by his first name, was born in 1564, in Pisa, Italy. His family belonged to the nobility but was not rich. His father sent him to study
4. medicine at the local university, but Galileo soon turned to a career in physical science and had achieved phenomenal results. Galileo was an inquiring person who was interested in the world around him and always wanted to know why things were the way they were. By watching a chandelier swing in the cathedral at Pisa, he discodered the law of the pendulum and gave society the first reliable means of keeping time. It happened when he was only nineteen years old. In three years he attracted the attention of scientists with his discoveries in hydrostatics and dynamics. His work in mechanics won him an appointment as a lecturer on mathematics, first at Academy of Florence, then at the University of Pisa, and later at the University of Padua. He discovered the irregular surface of the Moon with craters and mountains, certainly not as smooth as had been thought until that time. He found hundreds of new stars in the Orion constellation, far more than can be seen by the naked eye. He identified four satellites of Jupiter, constructed accurate tables of their revolutions, and predicted their frequent eclipses. In addition to this, he discovered sunspots and concluded that the Sun rotated on its axis by noticing movements of the sunspots across the solar disc. He observed Saturn and the phases of Venus. Finally, he proved that the Milky Way was a collection of Stars. Isn't it remarkable? There were enough discoveries for a whole department of scientists, not just one person. But the life of this scientist was not simple, predictable, or rational. Being as great as he was, Galileo, for example, did not accept Kepler's laws of planetary motion. At the same time, he believed with all his heart in the Copernicus`s theory of the solar system. Because of his personal belief in the heliocentric
5. doctrine, Galileo was heavily criticized by the church, and in 1616 was sentenced by the Inquisition to life imprisonment in his home in Florence. It was outrageous that a person such as Galileo was forced to spend the remainder of his days in house exile. Nevertheless, he continued to work and write books while in exile. One of the books was the famous "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems." Galileo died in 1642 after having suffered blindness in the last four years of his life and leaving his inventions, discoveries, books, and his devotion to science to future generations, that is, to us.