Galileo Galilei 1564 – 1642
Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and philosopher of science whose work helped to inaugurate the scientific revolution. He improved the telescope and used it to observe the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the rugged surface of the Moon, marshalling evidence for the Copernican system. He defended the autonomy of natural inquiry from theological authority and articulated a mathematical conception of nature that became foundational for modern physics. Tried by the Roman Inquisition in 1633, he spent his last years under house arrest, where he completed his Discourses on Two New Sciences.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Italian
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Renaissance, Early Modern
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Galileo Galilei:
“Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics.”
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Attributed to Galileo Galilei:
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
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Attributed to Galileo Galilei:
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
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Attributed to Galileo Galilei:
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”
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Attributed to Galileo Galilei:
“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.”