Four hundred years ago Galileo made a discovery that fundamentally shaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Using his powerful telescope he observed that the planet Jupiter had moons, which he initially thought to be planets. In March 1610, Galileo published his discoveries of Jupiter’s satellites and other celestial observations in […]
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Have you ever wondered why a boat made of steel floats in water while a solid bar of steel sinks? You might also wonder how the measurement of heat is related to buoyancy. At the start of the 17th Century, scientists wracked their brains to find a way to accurately detect the temperature of a
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In Galileo’s time, clocks weren’t very accurate or reliable. They were regulated by small rods driven back and forth by a weight attached to a cord. The clock’s speed was adjusted by moving the small weights that hung from the rod. Following the death of Galileo’s father in 1591 the famous French polymath Marin Marsenne,
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When scientist and polymath, Isaac Newton famously said “if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants“, one of the giants he was referring to was Galileo. Newton (1643-1727), who emerged as one of the greatest minds of the 17th century, discovered the laws of motion and described gravity. A century
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A new biography about Italian scientist, astronomer and mathematician, Galileo Galilei, makes a compelling argument that is as important today as it was 400 years ago. In Galileo and the Science Deniers, Mario Livio reveals Galileo’s courage and the personal struggles he endured throughout his life because of his unwavering search for the truth supported
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While teaching as head Mathematician at Padua University, Galileo became embroiled in an ongoing and heated public debate with his colleague Cesare Cremonini, a renowned Natural Philosopher. Cremonini, who followed the Aristotle school of belief that the planets (including the sun) orbit the Earth publicly denounced Galileo writing; It is hard to realize what a
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At a young age, while watching a lamp swinging in the Pisa Cathedral, Galileo discovered that each full swing of a pendulum takes exactly the same amount of time regardless of whether the arc of the swing is wide or narrow. He used his own pulse to measure the time of each of the lamp’s
Did you know that Galileo was the first scientist to measure heart rate? Read More »
Galileo (1564-1642) challenged some of the fundamental knowledge of his time, providing proof that certain long held beliefs were incorrect, and paving the way for a better scientific future. In his time it was accepted that the Earth was at the centre of the universe and the planets, including the sun, rotated around it. Thanks
Never happy to take someone else’s word, Galileo wanted to test everything for himself before forming his beliefs. This led him to his most famous experiment. Legend has it, he simultaneously dropped a heavy ball and a light ball from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to test which would fall the fastest. Counter
Galileo’s game-changing ball experiment Read More »
In anticipation of the world premiere of the Galileo: Scientist, Astronomer, Visionary exhibition in February 2021 we would like share with you some of our most intriguing findings about the Italian scientist, astronomer and mathematician. While some of these facts are obscure, Galileo’s discoveries four centuries ago enabled great paradigm shifts in science, and paved
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