List of Discoveries of Galileo Galile

Galileo Galilei's Invention & Contributions

 Earth's Orbit
Shortly after the telescope was invented in the Netherlands, Galileo fashioned his own from
makeshift spectacle lenses. He learned how to make increasingly powerful telescopes, which he
eventually used to to monitor the solar phases of the planet Venus. After noticing Venus went
through similar phases to the moon, he concluded the sun must be the central point of the solar
system, not the Earth as was previously assumed.
 The Principle of the Pendulum
At just 20 years of age, Galileo was in a grand cathedral and noticed that a lamp swinging
overhead took exactly the same period of time for each swing, even as the distance of a swing
got progressively shorter. This principle of the pendulum made Galileo famous, and was
eventually used to regulate clocks. The law states that a pendulum will always take the same
amount of time to finish a swing because there is always the same amount of kinetic energy in
the pendulum -- it is merely transferred from one direction to the other. 
 The Law of Falling Bodies
This law states that all objects will fall at an equal rate, when accounting for relatively minor
differences in aerodynamics and weather conditions. Galileo demonstrated this theory by
climbing to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropping items of various weight off the
side. All items hit the ground at the same time. Contrary to the conventional wisdom established
by Aristotle, the speed of a heavy object's fall was found to not be proportional to its weight.
 Astrological Discoveries
Galileo made several astronomical discoveries that people today simply accept as common
sense. He discovered that the surface of the moon is rough and uneven as opposed to smooth as
people had thought, and in 1610 he discovered four moons revolving around Jupiter. More
important than either of these was his finding that many more stars exist than are visible to the
eye, an assertion that came as a shocking surprise to the scientific community at the time.
 Mathematical Paradigm of Natural Law
For centuries, natural philosophy, which at that time encapsulated such fields as physics and
astronomy, was discussed and theorized from a qualitative standpoint. Galileo didn't just
discover specific laws of the universe, he reformed the qualitative standpoint and established
mathematics as the language of scientific discovery. He pioneered the scientific method and
ushered in the modern practice of experimentation and calculated laws of nature. His doing so
led to the revelations that many of the laws of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle
were incorrect.
 Galileo Facts

 Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy, on the 15th of February 1564, he died on the 8th of January 1642.
 Galileo was a ground breaking astronomer, physicist, mathematician, philosopher and inventor. Among his
inventions were telescopes, a compass and a thermometer.
 Galileo enrolled to do a medical degree at the University of Pisa but never finished, instead choosing to study
mathematics.
 Galileo built on the work of others to create a telescope with around 3x magnification, he later improved on this
to make telescopes with around 30x magnification.
 With these telescopes, Galileo was able to observe the skies in ways previously not achieved. In 1610 he made
observations of 4 objects surrounding Jupiter that behaved unlike stars, these turned out to be Jupiter’s four
largest satellite moons: Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. They were later renamed the Galilean satellites in
honor of Galileo himself.
 The discovery of these moons was not supported by the scientific principles of the time and Galileo had trouble
convincing some people that he had indeed discovered such objects. This was similar to other ideas put forward
by Galileo that were very controversial at the time.
 The Geocentric model of the universe which was embraced by earlier astronomers had the Earth at the center of
the universe with other objects moving around it. Work by Galileo, Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler
helped to supercede this theory with the more accurate heliocentric model. Such a view of the universe differed
strongly with the beliefs of the Catholic Church at the time and Galileo was forced to withdraw many of his ideas
and even spent the final years of his life under house arrest.
 Galileo refused to believe Kepler’s theory that the moon caused the tides, instead believing it was due to the
nature of the Earth’s rotation (helping prove that even the smartest people can make mistakes).