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Feb 18, 1564
Born
birth of Galileo Galilei in the Tuscan city of Pisa. -
1581
Education
Galileo enrolls in the University of Pisa to pursue a degree in medicine. -
New Creation
He publishes an essay on the hydro-static balance, a device to measure the mass of objects. -
Higher School
Galileo applies and is awarded the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua, where he remained until 1610. Padua is where Galileo did the majority of his work. -
Invention
Galileo learns of the recent invention, the telescope. He returned to Padua and is able to improve the magnification of the telescope he bought to 32 powers. -
Observations
Galileo makes many different observations about the solar system, using his new telescope.The moon is an irregular, rough body, not smooth as scientists thought.The Milky Way is composed of many stars.Jupiter has many small satellites that he named, "Sidera Medicea," after his favorite pupil.He made observations about Saturn, sunspots, and the phases of Venus.
He publishes the results in the 1610 book, "Sidereus Nuncius." -
Team Work
After being so warmly accepted at Rome, Galileo writes three letters to formally take his position on the heliocentric theory of the universe. His main reason for believing Kepler and Copernicus were his observations of sunspots moving around the sun. -
Publishing
Galileo publishes his great work, Dialogo sopra I due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico e copernicano (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems--Ptolemaic and Copernican) IN compliance with the Pope, the work is set as a conversation between two men discussing the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems -
House Arrest
Galileo is eventually placed on trial and at his old age, is forced to make the journey to Rome. He is under suspicion of "vehement suspicion of heresy," but is convicted of holding and teaching the Copernican belief. He is placed under house arrest for eight years until his death. -
Publishing Again
Despite his house arrest Galileo publishes Discorsi e dimostrazioni mathematiche intorno a due nuove scienze attenenti alla meccanica (Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences, a work about the principles of mechanics. -
Almost Blind
Galileo makes the discovery, months before he went completely blind, that the moon makes monthly wobbles on its axis, called liberations. -
Pendulum
Galileo was the first to record that the period of a swinging lamp high in a cathedral inventing the telescope was independent of the amplitude of the oscillations, at least for the small amplitudes he could observe. -
Dead
Galileo Galilei dies from a long illness.
