Search results
Dec 22, 2016 · December 22, 2016. Today virtually every child grows up learning that the earth orbits the sun. But four centuries ago, the idea of a heliocentric solar system was so controversial that the Catholic Church classified it as a heresy, and warned the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei to abandon it.
1564: Galileo Galilei was born. 1600: The Inquisition tried Giordano Bruno and burned him at the stake for heresy. He supported the heliocentric theory. 1609: Galileo invented a telescope that convinced him of the heliocentric model. 1615: The Catholic Church told Galileo to stop sharing his theory in public.
- Overview
- February 15, 1564
- 1581
- 1589–92
- 1592–1610
- 1609–10
- 1613–16
- 1623
- 1624
- 1632–33
verified
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
MLA
APA
Chicago Manual of Style
Galileo Galilei is born in Pisa, Italy. He is the oldest son of Vincenzo Galilei, a musician who made important contributions to the theory and practice of music. In the early 1570s the family moves to Florence where Galileo attends the monastery school in Vallombrosa.
Galileo enters the University of Pisa to study medicine but eventually decides to make mathematics and natural philosophy his profession. He later writes a short treatise on weighing small quantities and begins his study of motion.
A patron helps Galileo secure the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa. He writes his treatise On Motion during this time, demonstrating that several of Aristotle’s ideas about how objects move are false.
Galileo teaches at the University of Padua and continues his studies of motion. His experiments result in the law of falling bodies and the discovery that the flight of a projectile, such as a cannonball, is curved. Both ideas contradict Aristotelian physics.
Galileo builds a telescope to observe the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars. In 1610 he discovers four moons revolving around the planet Jupiter. In his book The Sidereal Messenger Galileo describes his discoveries supporting the Copernican heliocentric theory, which proposed that Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun. (For centuries astro...
Roman Catholic Church officials grow increasingly alarmed over Galileo’s support for Copernican ideas. In his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo discusses the problem of interpreting biblical passages in light of Copernican theory. The church warns him not to “hold, teach, or defend” this theory “either orally or in writing.”
Galileo publishes The Assayer, a discussion of physical reality—the “book of the universe”—and the scientific method of exploring it. He argues that the universe is written in the language of mathematics and geometry and that without learning this language, the true nature of the universe cannot be understood.
Pope Urban VIII gives Galileo permission to write about his theories of the universe but warns him to give Copernicus only slight treatment.
Galileo publishes Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic & Copernican (1632). The work is a debate among three characters, but the conclusions clearly favor Copernicus. The following year Galileo is summoned to Rome to stand trial for heresy. He is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Instead of going to prison he is pl...
People also ask
What is the historical question about Galileo's Life?
What do we know about Galileo?
When did Galileo die?
Why did Galileo go to Rome?
Jan 29, 2004 · Posted 01.29.04. NOVA. While Galileo is one of the world's most renowned scientists, not many of us know much about his life. This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site chronicles...
Sep 5, 2023 · Testing age-old theories and coming up with new ones after meticulous experimentation, the scientist fell foul of the Catholic Church for questioning the accepted Ptolemaic view of the universe. Found guilty of heresy in a trial in 1633, Galileo was obliged to live his final years under house arrest at his villa in Tuscany.
- Mark Cartwright
- What is Galileo most famous for?Galileo is famous for being a 17th-century mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and physicist who made several significant discoveries using a t...
- What three things did Galileo discover?Three things Galileo discovered are: the Moon has a surface like Earth's, the phases of Venus demonstrate that it revolves around the Sun, and that...
- Why was Galileo put on trial for heresy?Galileo was put on trial and found guilty of heresy in 1633 because he believed he had proven the Copernicus view of the heavens, that is, Earth re...
1 day ago · Did the Roman Catholic Church execute Galileo? No, the Roman Catholic Church did not execute or torture Galileo. For his heresy in claiming that Earth orbits the Sun, the church sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1633.
May 1, 2003 · CATHOLIC: No, the first event is the condemnation of March 5, 1616, by the Congregation of the Index. Galileo precipitated this condemnation, but none of his works were mentioned in the text itself. The document condemned the belief in the motion of the earth as contrary to good reason and to Scripture.
