Galileo Galilei

Introduction

Galileo Galilei is the scientist who more than anyone else has contributed to the reformulation of the basic methods of modern science. At the same time, his innovations involved not only the technical-scientific methods, but also have important philosophical implications. With good reason the "scientific revolution" of the sixteenth-seventeenth century has sometimes been attributed to the "Galilean revolution" (Drake, 169).

Life and Works

Born in Pisa in 1564, he studied mathematics under the guidance of hostile Ricci, a pupil of Nicolo Tartaglia, who was one of the greatest mathematicians of the sixteenth century. In 1589 he was appointed reader in mathematics at the Studio (l 'universities) from Pisa. The following year he wrote the De motu, which incorporates the medieval doctrine of Buridan dell'impetus before embryonic formulation - still in qualitative form - the principle of inertia.

Since 1592, he taught mathematics at Padua, where he remained until 1610. Experts draw some of the works of military architecture and physics, including the Treaty mechanics. Get in touch with the environment Aristotelian Padua (especially with Cesare Cremonini) and some representatives of the Venetian cultural (as Paolo Sarpi, the author of 'History of the Council of Trent, and Giovan Francesco Sagredo, a Venetian nobleman who became his disciple). It goes back to these years the construction of the telescope. Galileo certainly did not invent, but it uses that information had been received from 'Holland and in particular it's most expert craftsmen (Ravindra, 3256).

Using the telescope, he made his important astronomical discoveries. Starry Messenger published in 1610, made Galileo instantly famous around the world. Armed with this fame, in 1610, Galileo was summoned to Pisa with the appointment of "primary mathematician and philosopher" of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, as well as "primary mathematician" the University of Pisa without the 'obligation of teaching.

Galilei instead, using the 'contribution of the telescope, shows that the theory of Copernicus is not a 'geometric assumptions, but is physical reality: it is true that the Earth orbits the Sun and not standing still! However, at the conclusion of the process Galilei, forced to acknowledge his guilt for his life, he was sentenced to abjure "with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies", but it seems that leaving the court has said, "and yet it moves!" referring to the Earth, which he claimed the move, but had to admit that drugs with the 'act of renunciation.

It's very different' attitude and the process which is subjected to Galileo than Giordano Bruno: Bruno is condemned to the stake, Galileo's recantation, or signs a document where it says that his theories are false and so is saved. Galileo has frequently been criticized because in order to save the skin as it did "back off", giving up his theories.

The word "dialogue", then, involves an open dialogue between two characters, a theory that defends the Copernican el 'other than Ptolemy, with a third character that acts as a "referee". The title "tide" was ...