Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Who were Galileo's contemporaries?
On 7 January 1610, Galileo observed with his telescope what he described at the time as "three fixed stars, totally invisible[lower-alpha 3] by their smallness", all close to Jupiter, and lying on a straight line through it.[112] Observations on subsequent nights showed that the positions of these "stars" relative to Jupiter were changing in a way that would have been inexplicable if they had really been fixed stars. On 10 January, Galileo noted that one of them had disappeared, an observation which he attributed to its being hidden behind Jupiter. Within a few days, he concluded that they were orbiting Jupiter:[113] he had discovered three of Jupiter's four largest moons. He discovered the fourth on 13 January. Galileo named the group of four the Medicean stars, in honour of his future patron, Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Cosimo's three brothers.[114] Later astronomers, however, renamed them Galilean satellites in honour of their discoverer. These satellites were independently discovered by Simon Marius on 8 January 1610 and are now called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto the names given by Marius in his Mundus Iovialis published in 1614.[115]
In addition to depicting Galileo's trials before the Inquisition, the opera also allows us a glance into Galileo's more personal side. Namely, in showing us his relationship to his daughter Maria Celeste, who was a nun. Maria Celeste shared her father's love of learning and science, but also understood that he was a man of great faith. She recognized that science was the very subject that served to deepen his faith, and she encouraged him on this path. The two met rarely. They were separated not only by distance, but by Galileo's often ailing health. Sadly, they were ultimately separated by her death at the age of 33, a source of incredible sadness for Galileo. However, their connection in this opera serves to give his story a more personal rendering. The story itself is told backwards through time. It begins with an aged Galileo, blinded from having looked at the sun too often and ends with him as a child. This is related to his invention of the telescope, which works by reversing images with lenses. Much of the staging in this production is representative of Galileo's theories and follows the patterns of the discoveries, planets, and constellations that his inventions made known to the world.
In this most famous example cited by critics of the Catholic Church's "posture towards science", Galileo Galilei was denounced in 1633 for his work on the heliocentric model of the solar system, previously proposed by the Polish clergyman and intellectual Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus's work had been suppressed de facto by the Church, but Catholic authorities were generally tolerant of discussion of the hypothesis as long as it was portrayed only as a useful mathematical fiction, and not descriptive of reality. Galileo, by contrast, argued from his unprecedented observations of the solar system that the heliocentric system was not merely an abstract model for calculating planetary motions, but actually corresponded to physical reality – that is, he insisted the planets really do orbit the Sun. After years of telescopic observation, consultations with the Popes, and verbal and written discussions with astronomers and clerics, a trial was convened by the Tribunal of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" (not "guilty of heresy," as is frequently misreported), placed under house arrest, and all of his works, including any future writings, were banned. Galileo had been threatened with torture and other Catholic scientists fell silent on the issue. Galileo's great contemporary René Descartes stopped publishing in France and went to Sweden. According to Polish-British historian of science Jacob Bronowski:
The other three Italian submarines transferred to Tercio were ("Aguilar Tablada"), ("Gonzalez Lopez") and ("General Sanjurjo II"). All four were based at Soller. "Galileo Galilei" conducted several patrols without any success. In February 1938 she returned home, as Italy withdrew their submarines from Spanish service due to international pressure. Upon her return, "Galileo Galilei" was temporarily assigned to the 44th Squadron of the VII Submarine Group based at Taranto, together with "Galileo Ferraris", and the more modern , , , and . During 1939 "Galileo Galilei" and "Galileo Ferraris" were moved to a different location and the 44th Squadron was renamed to 41st Squadron.
Jesuit astronomers, experts both in Church teachings, science, and in natural philosophy, were at first skeptical and hostile to the new ideas; however, within a year or two the availability of good telescopes enabled them to repeat the observations. In 1611, Galileo visited the Collegium Romanum in Rome, where the Jesuit astronomers by that time had repeated his observations. Christoph Grienberger, one of the Jesuit scholars on the faculty, sympathized with Galileo's theories, but was asked to defend the Aristotelian viewpoint by Claudio Acquaviva, the Father General of the Jesuits. Not all of Galileo's claims were completely accepted: Christopher Clavius, the most distinguished astronomer of his age, never was reconciled to the idea of mountains on the Moon, and outside the collegium many still disputed the reality of the observations. In a letter to Kepler of August 1610,[7] Galileo complained that some of the philosophers who opposed his discoveries had refused even to look through a telescope:[8]
Galileo Galilei was named court mathematician to Cosimo in 1610, a post that freed Galileo from the constraints of teaching mathematics at universities. As court mathematician, Galileo was free to challenge the distinction between disciplines and advance theories of Nicolaus Copernicus by using mathematics to address questions of physics. The already famous Galileo had used his telescopic accomplishments in his bid for patronage. Once appointed, Galileo moved to the Florence court and found a resource rich environment where he worked as philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Galileo was actively involved in court life and supported the dynastic rhetoric of the Medici family. Aside from producing intellectual spectacles, Galileo used the Medici court to advance his theoretical claims and discoveries. The four moons of Jupiter he had discovered were named "Medicean Stars" in reference to Cosimo and his three brothers. Tuscan ambassadors were used to advance scientific debate in Europe. Ambassadors in Prague, Paris, London and Madrid received copies of Galileo's "Sidereus Nuncius" and were sent telescopes constructed by Galileo, paid for by the court treasury.
The first reported observation of Io was made by Galileo Galilei on 7 January 1610 using a 20x-power, refracting telescope at the University of Padua. However, in that observation, Galileo could not separate Io and Europa due to the low power of his telescope, so the two were recorded as a single point of light. Io and Europa were seen for the first time as separate bodies during Galileo's observations of the Jovian system the following day, 8 January 1610 (used as the discovery date for Io by the IAU). The discovery of Io and the other Galilean satellites of Jupiter was published in Galileo's "Sidereus Nuncius" in March 1610. In his "Mundus Jovialis", published in 1614, Simon Marius claimed to have discovered Io and the other moons of Jupiter in 1609, one week before Galileo's discovery. Galileo doubted this claim and dismissed the work of Marius as plagiarism. Regardless, Marius' first recorded observation came from 29 December 1609 in the Julian calendar, which equates to 8 January 1610 in the Gregorian calendar, which Galileo used. Given that Galileo published his work before Marius, Galileo is credited with the discovery.
Capra’s second confrontation with Galileo was sufficiently serious for Galileo to decide he needed to confront it openly. In 1602 Capra and his father had asked Galileo to let them observe how his proportional compass worked - although Galileo had not invented the instrument, he had made it much easier to use and had devised new applications for it. In 1605 the Capras had borrowed a Galilean compass for a time from their friend Giacomo Alvise Cornaro, and they spent time at the workshop of Marcantonio Mazzoleni, the craftsman who made Galileo’s instruments for him. By these means they were able to learn how the compass was made.
Although none of the Medici themselves were scientists, the family is well known to have been the patrons of the famous Galileo Galilei, who tutored multiple generations of Medici children and was an important figurehead for his patron's quest for power. Galileo's patronage was eventually abandoned by Ferdinando II, when the Inquisition accused Galileo of heresy. However, the Medici family did afford the scientist a safe haven for many years. Galileo named the four largest moons of Jupiter after four Medici children he tutored, although the names Galileo used are not the names currently used.
The son of Francesco Arrighetti and Fiammetta Ginori, as a young man he was a private student of Galileo’s, together with his cousin Andrea Arrighetti. Around 1614, Arrighetti assisted Galileo in replying to an attack by Giorgio Coresio on his views of the behaviour of bodies in water. Arrighetti maintained a close interest in Galileo’s experiments in physics and his mathematical work (notably on the flow of water in both straight and twisting channels). It was also Arrighetti who brought Galileo news from Benedetto Castelli about the dispute between Castelli and Cosimo Boscaglia, that prompted Galileo to write his "Letter to Benedetto Castelli". A number of Galileo’s notes, sketches and drawings on various topics, including motion, were recorded or copied by Arrighetti.
Some astronomers and philosophers, such as Kepler, did not publish views on the ideas in Galileo's "Letters on Sunspots". Most scholars with an interest in the topic divided into those who supported Scheiner's view that sunspots were planets or other bodies above the surface of the Sun, or Galileo's that they were on or very near its surface. From the middle of the seventeenth century the debate about whether Scheiner or Galileo was right died down, partly because the number of sunspots was drastically reduced for several decades in the Maunder Minimum, making observation harder. After the Paris Observatory was built in 1667, Jean-Dominique Cassini instituted a programme of systematic observations, but he and his colleagues could find little pattern in the appearance of sunspots after many years of observation. However Cassini's observation did bear out Galileo's argument that sunspots indicated that the Sun was rotating, and Cassini did discover the rotation of Mars and Jupiter, which supported Galileo's contention that both the Earth and the Sun rotated.
Galileo was then tested against older horses in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot in July. The betting suggested that the race would be a match between Galileo (1/2 favourite) and the Godolphin five-year-old Fantastic Light (7-2), who had won Group One races in four different countries. Such were the reputations of these two horses that the third choice in the betting, the Prix du Jockey Club winner Anabaa Blue, started at 18/1. Kinane took Galileo to the lead two furlongs out, but Frankie Dettori soon brought Fantastic Light to challenge. The horses raced together for a few strides before Galileo pulled ahead inside the final furlong and won by two lengths. Marcus Townend, writing in the Daily Mail, described Galileo as the best horse in Europe and praised his "determination" and "lightning acceleration."
Galileo, old and broken, now living under house arrest with a priest monitoring his activities, is visited by one of his former pupils, Andrea. Galileo gives him a book ("Two New Sciences") containing all his scientific discoveries, asking him to smuggle it out of Italy for dissemination abroad. Andrea now believes Galileo's actions were heroic and that he just recanted to fool the ecclesiastical authorities. However, Galileo insists his actions had nothing to do with heroism but were merely the result of self-interest.
He studied theology and law in Rome, where he was a contemporary of René-François de Sluse. He also studied mathematics under Benedetto Castelli who himself had been a student of Galileo Galilei. He was a friend of Evangelista Torricelli, kept close links with contemporary scientific culture, and played an important role in the development of the Galilean school.
The scientist Galileo Galilei is called the first modern scientist. His work constitutes a significant break from that of Aristotle and medieval philosophers and scientists (who were then referred to as "natural philosophers"). Galileo’s achievements include improvements to the telescope, various astronomical observations, and initial formulation of the first and second laws of motion. Galileo was suppressed by the Catholic Church, but was a founder of modern science.
Galileo's escapement is a design for a clock escapement, invented around 1637 by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). It was the earliest design of a pendulum clock. Since he was blind, Galileo described the device to his son, who drew a sketch of it. The son began construction of a prototype, but both he and Galileo died before it was completed.
According to J. L. Heilbron, informed contemporaries of Galileo's "appreciated that the reference to heresy in connection with Galileo or Copernicus had no general or theological significance."
Galileo's dispute with Grassi permanently alienated many of the Jesuits who had previously been sympathetic to his ideas,[64] and Galileo and his friends were convinced that these Jesuits were responsible for bringing about his later condemnation.[65] The evidence for this is at best equivocal, however.[66]
Galileo Galilei was a scientist who performed many quantitative experiments by addressing many topics. Using several different methods, Galileo was able to accurately measure time. Previously, most scientists had used distance to describe falling bodies using geometry, which had been used and trusted since Euclid. Galileo himself used geometrical methods to express his results. Galileo's successes were aided by the development of a new mathematics as well as cleverly designed experiments and equipment. At that time, another kind of mathematics was being developed—algebra. Algebra allowed arithmetical calculations to become as sophisticated as geometric ones. Algebra also allowed the discoveries of scientists such as Galileo—as well as later scientists like Newton, Maxwell and Einstein—to be later summarized by mathematical equations. These equations described physical relationships in a precise, self-consistent manner.
In the course of his studies of Galileo, Koyré famously claimed that the experiments with weights falling and rolling on inclined planes that Galileo described in his writings probably had not been carried out in practice, but were instead thought experiments intended to illustrate his deductions. Koyré argued that the precision of the results reported by Galileo was not possible with the technology available to him and quoted the contemporary judgement of Marin Mersenne, who had questioned the feasibility of reproducing Galileo's results. Furthermore, according to Koyré, Galileo's science was largely a product of his Platonist philosophy and did not really derive from experimental observations.
First learning of Galileo's work through Robert Balfour who knew Galileo, Jean Tarde read Sidereus Nuncius and wanted to find out more about Galileo's work. During his visit to Florence, Jean Tarde went to see Galileo in 1614, November 12. Tarde admired Galileo writing in his own diary after the encounter, "In the morning I went to see Master Galileo, famed philosopher and astronomer... I told him that his fame had crossed the Alps, traversed France, and reached even to the ocean." In their conversation, he talked with Galileo about several topics such as the "moons" (ring) of Saturn and phases of Venus. Galileo believed that the spots traveled the same path as Venus and Mercury taking 14 days to cross the middle of the earth. Galileo also felt that there was no parallax for the spots, meaning the spots had to be very close to or on the sun, not the earth. He knew his claims may have been hard to believe, so Galileo also told Tarde that others had seen the same spots he had seen, which in effect helped validate his sightings.
If this theory were correct, there would be only one high tide per day. Galileo and his contemporaries were aware of this inadequacy because there are two daily high tides at Venice instead of one, about twelve hours apart. Galileo dismissed this anomaly as the result of several secondary causes including the shape of the sea, its depth, and other factors.[43] Against the assertion that Galileo was deceptive in making these arguments, Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that Galileo developed his "fascinating arguments" and accepted them uncritically out of a desire for physical proof of the motion of the Earth.[44] Galileo dismissed the idea, held by his contemporary Johannes Kepler, that the moon caused the tides.[45] (Galileo also took no interest in Kepler's elliptical orbits of the planets.)[46][47]
A variety of models and toys were created based on the design of the "Galileo". These include several versions by the Franklin Mint, such as a pewter model of "Galileo II" in 1990 and two versions of "Galileo" dioramas, depicting the shuttle on a planet set within a mini-globe, in 1995. Hallmark produced a Christmas decoration of the "Galileo" in 1992; this was only the second release in the range, following the previous year's production of the "Enterprise". The "Galileo" has also appeared within a set of shuttlecraft models for the "Star Trek: Official Starships Collection" in 2015.
The famous astronomers Nicholas Copernicus, who put the sun at the centre of the heavens in 1543, and Galileo Galilei, who experimented with the new technology of the telescope and, with its aid declared his belief that Copernicus was correct – were both practising Catholics – indeed Copernicus was a catholic clergyman. Yet the church establishment at that time held to theories devised in pre-Christian Greece by Ptolemy and Aristotle, which said that the sky revolved around the earth. When Galileo began to assert that the earth in fact revolved around the sun, he therefore found himself challenging the Church establishment at a time where the Church hierarchy also held temporal power and was engaged in the ongoing political challenge of the rise of Protestantism. After discussions with Pope Urban VIII (a man who had written admiringly of Galileo before taking papal office), Galileo believed he could avoid censure by presenting his arguments in dialogue form – but the Pope took offence when he discovered that some of his own words were being spoken by a character in the book who was a simpleton and Galileo was called for a trial before the Inquisition.
Although named after the 16th–17th-century physicist Galileo, the thermometer described in this article was not invented by him. Galileo did invent a thermometer, called Galileo's air thermometer (more accurately termed a thermoscope), in or before 1603. The so-called 'Galileo thermometer' was invented by a group of academics and technicians known as the Accademia del Cimento of Florence, who included Galileo's pupil, Torricelli and Torricelli's pupil Viviani. Details of the thermometer were published in the "Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell'Academia del Cimento sotto la protezione del Serenissimo Principe Leopoldo di Toscana e descritte dal segretario di essa Accademia" (1666), the Academy's main publication. The English translation of this work (1684) describes the device ('The Fifth Thermometer') as 'slow and lazy', a description that is reflected in an alternative Italian name for the invention, the "termometro lento" (slow thermometer). The outer vessel was filled with 'rectified spirits of wine' (a concentrated solution of ethanol in water); the weights of the glass bubbles were adjusted by grinding a small amount of glass from the sealed end; and a small air space was left at the top of the main vessel to allow 'for the Liquor to rarefie' [i.e. expand].