|
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese
English
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Malay
Polish
Portuguese
Spanish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese|
BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Galileo Galileo. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
The name of this man aroused both admiration and hatred among his contemporaries. Nevertheless, he entered the history of world science not only as a follower of Giordano Bruno, but also as one of the greatest scientists of the Italian Renaissance. He was born on February 15, 1564 in the city of Pisa into a noble but impoverished family. His father Vincenzo Galilei was a talented musician and composer, but art did not provide a livelihood, and the father of the future scientist earned money by trading in cloth. Until the age of eleven, Galileo lived in Pisa and studied at a regular school, and then moved with his family to Florence. Here he continued his education in a Benedictine monastery, where he studied grammar, arithmetic, rhetoric and other subjects. At the age of seventeen, Galileo entered the University of Pisa and began to prepare for the profession of a doctor. At the same time, out of curiosity, he read works on mathematics and mechanics, in particular, Euclid and Archimedes. Later, Galileo always called the latter his teacher. Due to a cramped financial situation, the young man had to leave the University of Pisa and return to Florence. At home, Galileo independently engaged in an in-depth study of mathematics and physics, which interested him very much. In 1586, he wrote his first scientific work, "Small Hydrostatic Balance", which brought him some fame and allowed him to meet several scientists. Under the patronage of one of them - the author of the "Textbook of Mechanics" Guido Ubaldo del Monte Galilei in 1589 received the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa. At twenty-five, he became a professor at the place where he studied, but did not complete his education. Galileo taught students mathematics and astronomy, which he expounded, of course, according to Ptolemy. It was to this time that the experiments that he set, throwing various bodies from the inclined Leaning Tower of Pisa, to check whether they fall in accordance with the teachings of Aristotle - heavy faster than light ones. The answer turned out to be negative. In On Motion (1590), Galileo criticized the Aristotelian doctrine of the fall of bodies. In it, among other things, he wrote: "If reason and experience coincide in something, it does not matter to me that this contradicts the opinion of the majority." The establishment by Galileo of the isochronism of small oscillations of the pendulum belongs to the same period - the independence of the period of its oscillations from the amplitude. He came to this conclusion while watching the swinging of the chandeliers in the Pisa Cathedral and noting the time by the beating of the pulse on his hand ... Guido del Monte highly appreciated Galileo as a mechanic and called him "Archimedes of the new time." Galileo's criticism of the physical ideas of Aristotle set against him numerous supporters of the ancient Greek scientist. The young professor became very uncomfortable in Pisa, and he accepted an invitation to take the chair of mathematics at the famous University of Padua. The Padua period is the most fruitful and happy in the life of Galileo. Here he found a family, linking his fate with Marina Gamba, who bore him two daughters: Virginia (1600) and Livia (1601); later son Vincenzo was born (1606). Since 1606, Galileo has been engaged in astronomy. In March 1610, his work entitled "The Starry Herald" was published. It is unlikely that so much sensational astronomical information was reported in one work, moreover, literally during several night observations in January - February of the same 1610. Having learned about the invention of the telescope and having a good workshop of his own, Galileo makes several samples of telescopes, constantly improving their quality. As a result, the scientist managed to make a telescope with a magnification of 32 times. On the night of January 7, 1610, he points the telescope to the sky. What he saw there - a lunar landscape, mountain ranges and peaks that cast shadows, valleys and seas - already led to the idea that the Moon was similar to the Earth - a fact that testified not in favor of religious dogmas and Aristotle's teachings about a special the position of the earth among the heavenly bodies. A huge white band in the sky - the Milky Way - when viewed through a telescope, was clearly divided into individual stars. Near Jupiter, the scientist noticed small stars (first three, then one more), which changed their position relative to the planet the very next night. Galileo, with his kinematic perception of natural phenomena, did not need to think long - before him were the satellites of Jupiter! - another argument against the exclusive position of the Earth. Galileo discovered the existence of four moons of Jupiter. Later, Galileo discovered the phenomenon of Saturn (although he did not understand what was the matter) and discovered the phases of Venus. By observing how sunspots move across the solar surface, he found that the Sun also rotates around its axis. Based on observations, Galileo concluded that rotation around an axis is characteristic of all celestial bodies. Observing the starry sky, he became convinced that the number of stars is much greater than can be seen with the naked eye. So Galileo confirmed Giordano Bruno's idea that the expanses of the Universe are endless and inexhaustible. After that, Galileo concluded that the heliocentric system of the world proposed by Copernicus is the only true one. The telescopic discoveries of Galileo were met by many with distrust, even with hostility, but the supporters of the Copernican doctrine, and above all Kepler, who immediately published the Conversation with the Starry Messenger, treated them with delight, seeing in this confirmation of the correctness of their convictions. "The Starry Herald" brought the European fame to the scientist. The Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II Medici offered Galileo to take the position of court mathematician. She promised a comfortable existence, free time for doing science, and the scientist accepted the offer. In addition, this allowed Galileo to return to his homeland, to Florence. Now, having a powerful patron in the person of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Galileo more and more boldly begins to propagate the teachings of Copernicus. Clerical circles are alarmed. The authority of Galileo as a scientist is high, his opinion is listened to. So, many will decide, the doctrine of the motion of the Earth is not just one of the hypotheses of the structure of the world, which simplifies astronomical calculations. The anxiety of the ministers of the church about the triumphant spread of the teachings of Copernicus is well explained by a letter from Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino to one of his correspondents: this is well said, and involves no danger; and this is sufficient for mathematics; but when one begins to say that the sun actually stands at the center of the world, and that it only revolves around itself, but does not move from east to west, and that The earth is in the third heaven and revolves around the sun with great speed, then this is a very dangerous thing, and not only because it irritates all philosophers and learned theologians, but also because it harms the holy faith, since the falsity of the holy faith follows from it. Scripture." In Rome, denunciations against Galileo rained down. In 1616, at the request of the Congregation of the Holy Index (an ecclesiastical institution in charge of permits and prohibitions), eleven prominent theologians examined the teachings of Copernicus and came to the conclusion that it was false. On the basis of this conclusion, the heliocentric doctrine was declared heretical, and Copernicus' book "On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres" was included in the index of forbidden books. At the same time, all books that supported this theory were banned - those that existed and those that would be written in the future. Galileo was summoned from Florence to Rome and, in a mild but categorical manner, demanded that he stop propagating heretical ideas about the structure of the world. The exhortation was carried out by the same Cardinal Bellarmino. Galileo was forced to comply. He did not forget how persistence in "heresy" ended for Giordano Bruno. Moreover, as a philosopher, he knew that "heresy" today becomes truth tomorrow. In 1623, under the name of Urban VIII, Galileo's friend, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, became pope. The scientist hurries to Rome. He hopes to achieve the abolition of the prohibition of the "hypothesis" of Copernicus, but in vain. The pope explains to Galileo that now, when the Catholic world is torn apart by heresy, it is unacceptable to question the truth of the holy faith. Galileo returns to Florence and continues to work on a new book, without losing hope of someday publishing his work. In 1628, he visits Rome again to reconnoiter the situation and find out the attitude of the highest hierarchs of the church towards the teachings of Copernicus. In Rome, he meets the same intolerance, but it does not stop him. Galileo finishes the book and in 1630 presents it to the Congregation. Consideration of the work of Galileo in censorship lasted two years, then a ban followed. Then Galileo decided to publish his work in his native Florence. He managed to skillfully deceive the local censors, and in 1632 the book was published. It was called "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican" and was written as a dramatic work. For censorship reasons, Galileo is forced to exercise caution: the book is written in the form of a dialogue between two supporters of Copernicus and one adherent of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and each of the interlocutors tries to understand the point of view of the other, assuming its justice. In the preface, Galileo is forced to declare that since the teachings of Copernicus are contrary to the holy faith and forbidden, he is not at all his supporter, and in the book the Copernican theory is only discussed, not affirmed. But neither the preface nor the form of presentation could hide the truth: the dogmas of Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy suffer such an obvious collapse here, and the theory of Copernicus triumphs so convincingly that, contrary to what was said in the preface, Galileo's personal attitude to the teachings of Copernicus and his conviction in the justice of this teaching did not raise doubts. True, it follows from the exposition that Galileo still believed in the uniform and circular motion of the planets around the Sun, that is, he was unable to evaluate and did not accept the Keplerian laws of planetary motion. He also disagreed with Kepler's assumptions about the causes of tides (the attraction of the moon!), instead developing his own theory of this phenomenon, which turned out to be incorrect. The church authorities were furious. Sanctions followed immediately. The sale of Dialogue was banned, and Galileo was summoned to Rome for trial. In vain did the seventy-year-old elder present the testimony of three doctors that he was ill. It was reported from Rome that if he did not come voluntarily, he would be brought by force, in shackles. And the aged scientist went on his way. “I arrived in Rome,” Galileo writes in one of his letters, “on February 10, 1633, and relied on the mercy of the Inquisition and the Holy Father ... First they locked me in the Trinity Castle on the mountain, and the next day I was visited by the commissioner of the Inquisition and took me away in his carriage. On the way, he asked me various questions and expressed the wish that I stop the scandal caused in Italy by my discovery regarding the movement of the Earth ... To all the mathematical evidence that I could oppose to him, he answered me with words from the Holy Scripture: "The Earth was and will be immovable forever and ever. The investigation dragged on from April to June 1633, and on June 22, in the same church, almost at the same place where Giordano Bruno heard the death sentence, Galileo, on his knees, pronounced the text of the renunciation offered to him. Under the threat of torture, Galileo, refuting the accusation that he violated the ban on propagating the teachings of Copernicus, was forced to admit that he "unconsciously" contributed to the confirmation of the correctness of this teaching, and publicly renounce it. In doing so, the humiliated Galileo understood that the process started by the Inquisition would not stop the triumphal march of the new teaching, he himself needed time and opportunity to further develop the ideas embodied in the "Dialogue" so that they would become the beginning of the classical system of the world, in which there would be no place church dogma. This process caused irreparable damage to the Church. Galileo did not give up, although in the last years of his life he had to work in the most difficult conditions. At his villa in Arcetri, he was under house arrest (under the constant supervision of the Inquisition). Here is what he writes, for example, to his friend in Paris: “In Arcetri, I live under the strictest ban not to travel to the city and not to receive many friends at the same time, nor to communicate with those whom I receive except with extreme restraint ... And it seems to me that ... my current prison will be replaced only by that long and cramped one that awaits us all. For two years in captivity, Galileo wrote "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs ...", where, in particular, he sets out the foundations of dynamics. When the book is finished, the entire Catholic world (Italy, France, Germany, Austria) refuses to print it. In May 1636, the scientist negotiates the publication of his work in Holland, and then secretly forwards the manuscript there. "Conversations" are published in Leiden in July 1638, and the book reaches Archetri almost a year later - in June 1639. By that time, the blinded Galileo (years of hard work, age and the fact that the scientist often looked at the Sun without good light filters affected) could only feel his offspring with his hands. Galileo died on January 8, 1642. Only in November 1979, Pope John Paul II officially admitted that the Inquisition had made a mistake in 1633, forcing the scientist to renounce the Copernican theory by force. This was the first and only case in the history of the Catholic Church of a public recognition of the injustice of condemning a heretic, committed 337 years after his death. Author: Samin D.K.
▪ Lomonosov Mikhail. Biography
Machine for thinning flowers in gardens
02.05.2024 Advanced Infrared Microscope
02.05.2024 Air trap for insects
01.05.2024
▪ D-Link DCS-8325LH Cloud Wireless Camera ▪ A device that decomposes sounds without the help of digital technology ▪ ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming Motherboards ▪ Silicone film smoothes wrinkles
▪ section of the site Funny puzzles. Article selection ▪ article Can a mockingbird scream with its own voice? Detailed answer ▪ Article Bricklayer. Standard instruction on labor protection ▪ article Insidious blot. physical experiment
Home page | Library | Articles | Website map | Site Reviews
www.diagram.com.ua |
We recommend interesting articles Section 
See other articles Section 
Latest news of science and technology, new electronics:
All languages of this page