Galileo Galilei

- Galileo provided critical evidence to support the Copernican theory

- Galileo’s brilliant idea was to turn the newly invented telescope skyward for a systematic
study of the heavens
- His first telescope had a magnification factor of only 3 - today could be duplicated for a
dollars worth
- His best telescope had a magnification of only 30 but his discoveries changed the way
people thought of the universe
- Came up with the concept of Inertia - an object's resistance to any change in its motion
- He was the first modern scientist - completed the Copernican revolution with the
telescopic observations