What celestial body was discovered by Galileo. Galileo Galileo, discoveries - briefly
One of the most famous astronomers, physicists and philosophers in the history of mankind is Galileo Galilei. A brief biography and his discoveries, which you will now learn about, will allow you to get a general idea of \u200b\u200bthis outstanding person.
First steps in the world of science
Galileo was born in Pisa (Italy), February 15, 1564. At the age of eighteen, the young man enters the University of Pisa to study medicine. His father pushed him to take this step, but due to lack of money, Galileo was soon forced to leave his studies. However, the time that the future scientist spent at the university was not in vain, because it was here that he began to take a keen interest in mathematics and physics. No longer a student, the gifted Galileo Galilei did not abandon his hobbies. A brief biography and his discoveries made during this period played an important role in the future fate of the scientist. He devotes some time to the independent study of mechanics, and then returns to the University of Pisa, this time as a teacher of mathematics. After some time, he was invited to continue teaching at the University of Padua, where he explained to students the basics of mechanics, geometry and astronomy. Just at this time, Galileo began to make discoveries significant for science.
In 1593, the first scientist was published - a book with a laconic title "Mechanics", in which Galileo described his observations.
Astronomical research
After the publication of the book, a new Galileo Galilei is “born”. A brief biography and his discoveries is a topic that cannot be discussed without mentioning the events of 1609. After all, it was then that Galileo independently built his first telescope with a concave eyepiece and a convex objective. The device gave an increase of about three times. However, Galileo did not stop there. Continuing to improve his telescope, he increased the magnification to 32 times. Observing in it the Earth's satellite - the Moon, Galileo discovered that its surface, like the earth's, is not flat, but is covered with various mountains and numerous craters. Four stars were also discovered through the glass and changed their usual sizes, and for the first time the idea of their global remoteness arose. turned out to be a huge accumulation of millions of new celestial bodies. In addition, the scientist began to observe the movement of the Sun and make notes about sunspots.
Conflict with the Church
The biography of Galileo Galilei is another round in the confrontation between the science of that time and church teaching. Based on his observations, the scientist soon comes to the conclusion that the heliocentric, first proposed and justified by Copernicus, is the only true one. This contradicted the literal understanding of Psalms 93 and 104, and in addition, the verse from Ecclesiastes 1:5, in which one can find reference to the immobility of the Earth. Galileo was summoned to Rome, where they demanded to stop propagating "heretical" views, and the scientist was forced to comply.
However, Galileo Galilei, whose discoveries had already been appreciated by some representatives of the scientific community, did not stop there. In 1632, he makes a cunning move - he publishes a book called "Dialogue on the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican." This work was written in an unusual form of dialogue at that time, the participants of which were two supporters of the theory of Copernicus, as well as one follower of the teachings of Ptolemy and Aristotle. Pope Urban VIII, a good friend of Galileo, even gave permission for the publication of the book. But this did not last long - just a couple of months later, labor was recognized as contrary to the dogmas of the church and banned. The author was summoned to Rome for trial.
The investigation lasted quite a long time: from April 21 to June 21, 1633. On June 22, Galileo was forced to pronounce the text offered to him, according to which he renounced his "false" beliefs.
The last years in the life of a scientist
I had to work in the most difficult conditions. Galileo was sent to his villa Archertri, in Florence. Here he was under the constant supervision of the Inquisition and did not have the right to get out into the city (Rome). In 1634, the beloved daughter of the scientist, who had taken care of him for a long time, died.
Death came to Galileo on January 8, 1642. He was buried on the territory of his villa, without any honors and even without a tombstone. However, in 1737, after almost a hundred years, the last will of the scientist was fulfilled - his ashes were transferred to the monastic chapel of the Florentine Cathedral of Santa Croce. On the seventeenth of March, he was finally buried there, not far from the grave of Michelangelo.
Posthumous rehabilitation
Was Galileo Galilei right in his beliefs? A brief biography and his discoveries have long been the subject of controversy between clergy and the luminaries of the scientific world, and many conflicts and disputes have developed on this basis. However, only on December 31, 1992 (!) John Paul II officially admitted that the Inquisition in the 33rd year of the 17th century made a mistake, forcing the scientist to renounce the heliocentric theory of the universe formulated by Nicolaus Copernicus.
Galileo Galilei - the greatest thinker of the Renaissance, the founder of modern mechanics, physics and astronomy, a follower of ideas, a predecessor.
The future scientist was born in Italy, the city of Pisa on February 15, 1564. Father Vincenzo Galilei, who belonged to an impoverished family of aristocrats, played the lute and wrote treatises on music theory. Vincenzo was a member of the Florentine Camerata society, whose members sought to revive the ancient Greek tragedy. The result of the activities of musicians, poets and singers was the creation of a new genre of opera at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries.
Mother Giulia Ammannati ran the household and raised four children: the eldest Galileo, Virginia, Livia and Michelangelo. The youngest son followed in the footsteps of his father and subsequently became famous for his composing art. When Galileo was 8 years old, the family moved to the capital of Tuscany, the city of Florence, where the Medici dynasty flourished, known for its patronage of artists, musicians, poets and scientists.
At an early age, Galileo was sent to school at the Benedictine monastery of Vallombrosa. The boy showed the ability to draw, study languages and the exact sciences. From his father, Galileo inherited an ear for music and the ability to compose, but only science really attracted the young man.
Studies
At 17, Galileo travels to Pisa to study medicine at the university. The young man, in addition to the basic subjects and medical practice, became interested in attending mathematical classes. The young man discovered the world of geometry and algebraic formulas, which influenced Galileo's worldview. During the three years that the young man studied at the university, he thoroughly studied the works of ancient Greek thinkers and scientists, and also got acquainted with the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.
After a three-year stay in an educational institution, Galileo was forced to return to Florence due to the lack of funds for further education from his parents. The management of the university did not make any concessions to the talented young man, did not give him the opportunity to complete the course and receive a degree. But Galileo already had an influential patron, the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte, who admired Galileo's talents in the field of invention. The aristocrat took care of the ward before the Tuscan Duke Ferdinand I of Medici and provided the young man with a salary at the court of the ruler.
Work at the university
The Marquis del Monte helped the talented scientist get a teaching position at the University of Bologna. In addition to lectures, Galileo leads a fruitful scientific activity. The scientist deals with issues of mechanics and mathematics. In 1689, the thinker returned to the University of Pisa for three years, but now as a teacher of mathematics. In 1692, for 18 years, he moved to the Venetian Republic, the city of Padua.
Combining teaching work at a local university with scientific experiments, Galileo publishes the books "On Motion", "Mechanics", where he refutes ideas. In the same years, one of the important events takes place - the scientist invents a telescope, which made it possible to observe the life of celestial bodies. The discoveries made by Galileo with the help of a new device, the astronomer described in the treatise "Star Messenger".
Returning to Florence in 1610, under the care of the Duke of Tuscany Cosimo de' Medici II, Galileo published the essay "Letters on Sunspots", which was critically received by the Catholic Church. At the beginning of the XVII century, the Inquisition acted on a large scale. And the followers of Copernicus were among the zealots of the Christian faith in a special account.
In 1600, he was already executed at the stake, who never renounced his own views. Therefore, the works of Galileo Galilei were considered provocative by Catholics. The scientist himself considered himself an exemplary Catholic and did not see a contradiction between his work and the Christocentric picture of the world. The astronomer and mathematician considered the Bible to be a book that contributes to the salvation of the soul, and not at all a scientific cognitive treatise.
In 1611, Galileo went to Rome to demonstrate the telescope to Pope Paul V. The scientist made the presentation of the device as correctly as possible and even received the approval of the metropolitan astronomers. But the request of the scientist to make a final decision on the issue of the heliocentric system of the world decided his fate in the eyes of the Catholic Church. The papists declared Galileo a heretic, and the indictment process was launched in 1615. The concept of heliocentrism was officially recognized as false by the Roman Commission in 1616.
Philosophy
The main postulate of Galileo's worldview is the recognition of the objectivity of the world, regardless of subjective perception by a person. The universe is eternal and infinite, initiated by the divine first impulse. Nothing in space disappears without a trace, only a change in the form of matter occurs. The basis of the material world is the mechanical movement of particles, by studying which you can learn the laws of the universe. Therefore, scientific activity should be based on experience and sensory knowledge of the world. According to Galileo, nature is the true subject of philosophy, comprehending which you can get closer to the truth and the fundamental principle of all things.
Galileo was an adherent of two methods of natural science - experimental and deductive. With the help of the first method, the scientist sought to prove the hypotheses, the second assumed a consistent movement from one experience to another, in order to achieve the completeness of knowledge. In his work, the thinker relied primarily on teaching. Criticizing the views, Galileo did not reject the analytical method used by the philosopher of antiquity.
Astronomy
Thanks to the telescope invented in 1609, which was created using a convex lens and a concave eyepiece, Galileo began to observe the heavenly bodies. But a three-fold increase in the first device was not enough for a scientist for full-fledged experiments, and soon the astronomer creates a telescope with a 32-fold increase in objects.
Inventions of Galileo Galilei: telescope and first compass The first luminary, which Galileo studied in detail with the help of a new device, was the Moon. The scientist discovered many mountains and craters on the surface of the Earth's satellite. The first discovery confirmed that the Earth does not differ in physical properties from other celestial bodies. This was the first refutation of Aristotle's statement about the difference between earthly and heavenly nature.
The second main discovery in the field of astronomy concerned the discovery of the four satellites of Jupiter, which in the 20th century was already confirmed by numerous space photos. Thus, he refuted the arguments of the opponents of Copernicus that if the Moon revolves around the Earth, then the Earth cannot revolve around the Sun. Galileo, due to the imperfection of the first telescopes, could not establish the period of rotation of these satellites. The final proof of the rotation of the moons of Jupiter was put forward 70 years later by the astronomer Cassini.
Galileo discovered the presence of sunspots, which he observed for a long time. Having studied the luminary, Galileo concluded that the Sun rotates around its own axis. Observing Venus and Mercury, the astronomer determined that the orbits of the planets are closer to the Sun than the earth. Galileo discovered the rings of Saturn and even described the planet Neptune, but he was not able to advance in these discoveries to the end, due to the imperfection of technology. Watching the stars of the Milky Way through a telescope, the scientist was convinced of their immense number.
By experience and empirical way, Galileo proves that the Earth revolves not only around the Sun, but also around its axis, which further strengthened the astronomer in the correctness of the Copernican hypothesis. In Rome, after a hospitable reception in the Vatican, Galileo becomes a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, which was founded by Prince Cesi.
Mechanics
According to Galileo, the basis of the physical process in nature is mechanical motion. The scientist considered the universe as a complex mechanism consisting of the simplest causes. Therefore, mechanics became the cornerstone in the scientific activity of Galileo. Galileo made many discoveries in the field of mechanics itself, and also determined the direction of future discoveries in physics.
The scientist was the first to establish the law of falling and confirmed it empirically. Galileo discovered the physical formula for the flight of a body moving at an angle to a horizontal surface. The parabolic motion of a thrown object was essential to the calculation of artillery tables.
Galileo formulated the law of inertia, which became the fundamental axiom of mechanics. Another discovery was the substantiation of the principle of relativity for classical mechanics, as well as the calculation of the formula for the oscillation of pendulums. Based on the latest research, the first pendulum clock was invented in 1657 by the physicist Huygens.
Galileo was the first to pay attention to the resistance of the material, which gave impetus to the development of an independent science. The reasoning of the scientist later formed the basis of the laws of physics on the conservation of energy in the field of gravity, the moment of force.
Maths
Galileo in mathematical judgments approached the idea of the theory of probability. The scientist outlined his own research on this subject in the treatise “Discourses on the game of dice”, which was published 76 years after the death of the author. Galileo became the author of the famous mathematical paradox about natural numbers and their squares. Galileo recorded the calculations in the work "Conversations about two new sciences". Developments formed the basis of the theory of sets and their classification.
Conflict with the Church
After 1616, a turning point in Galileo's scientific biography, he was forced to go into the shadows. The scientist was afraid to express his own ideas explicitly, so the only book published by Galileo after Copernicus was declared a heretic was the 1623 essay The Assayer. After the change of power in the Vatican, Galileo perked up, he believed that the new Pope Urban VIII would be more supportive of Copernican ideas than his predecessor.
But after the appearance in print in 1632 of the polemical treatise "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World," the Inquisition again brought proceedings against the scientist. The story of the accusation repeated itself, but this time for Galileo everything ended much worse.
Personal life
While living in Padua, young Gallileo met Marina Gamba, a citizen of the Venetian Republic, who became the civil wife of the scientist. Three children were born in the family of Galileo - the son of Vincenzo and the daughters of Virginia and Livia. Since the children appeared outside of a married marriage, the girls subsequently had to become nuns. At the age of 55, Galileo managed to legitimize only his son, so the young man was able to marry and give his father a grandson, who later, like his aunts, became a monk.
Galileo Galilei was outlawed After the Inquisition outlawed Galileo, he moved to a villa in Arcetri, which was not far from the daughters' monastery. Therefore, quite often, Galileo could see his favorite, the eldest daughter Virginia, until her death in 1634. The younger Livia did not visit her father due to illness.
Death
As a result of a short-term imprisonment in 1633, Galileo renounced the idea of heliocentrism and was placed under indefinite arrest. The scientist was placed under home guard in the city of Arcetri with limited communication. Galileo stayed at the Tuscan villa without a break until the last days of his life. The heart of a genius stopped on January 8, 1642. At the time of death, two students, Viviani and Torricelli, were next to the scientist. During the 30s, the last works of the thinker, Dialogues and Conversations and Mathematical Proofs Concerning Two New Branches of Science, were published in Protestant Holland.
Tomb of Galileo Galilei After his death, the Catholics forbade the burial of the ashes of Galileo in the crypt of the Basilica of Santa Croce, where the scientist wanted to rest. Justice prevailed in 1737. From now on, the grave of Galileo is located next to. After another 20 years, the church rehabilitated the idea of heliocentrism. Galileo's acquittal had to wait much longer. The error of the Inquisition was only recognized in 1992 by Pope John Paul II.
G. Galileo's main merit to astronomy is not even in his discoveries, but in the fact that he gave this science a working tool - a telescope. Some historians (in particular, N. Budur) call G. Galileo a plagiarist who appropriated the invention of the Dutchman I. Lippershney. The accusation is unfair: G. Galileo knew about the Dutch "magic pipe" only from the Venetian envoy, who did not report on the design of the device.
G. Galileo himself guessed about the structure of the pipe and designed it. In addition, I. Lippershney's tube gave a threefold increase, which was not enough for astronomical observations. G. Galileo managed to achieve an increase of 34.6 times. With such a telescope it was possible to observe celestial bodies.
With the help of his invention, the astronomer saw the Sun and guessed from their movement that the Sun was rotating. He observed the phases of Venus, saw the mountains on the Moon and their shadows, from which he calculated the height of the mountains.
G. Galileo's pipe made it possible to see the four largest satellites of Jupiter. G. Galileo called them Medici stars in honor of his patron Ferdinand Medici, Duke of Tuscany. Subsequently, they were given other names: Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa. The significance of this discovery for the era of G. Galileo is difficult to overestimate. There was a struggle between the supporters of geocentrism and heliocentrism. The discovery of celestial bodies revolving not around the Earth, but around another object, was a serious argument in favor of the theory of N. Copernicus.
Other sciences
Physics in the modern sense begins with the works of G. Galileo. He is the founder of the scientific method, which combines experiment and its rational comprehension.
This is how he studied, for example, the free fall of bodies. The researcher found that the weight of a body does not affect its free fall. Along with the laws of free fall, he discovered the movement of a body along an inclined plane, inertia, a constant period of oscillation, and the addition of movements. Many ideas of G. Galileo were subsequently developed by I. Newton.
In mathematics, the scientist made a significant contribution to the development of probability theory, and also laid the foundations of set theory, formulating the "Galilean paradox": there are as many natural numbers as their squares, although most of the numbers are not squares.
inventions
The telescope is not the only device designed by G. Galileo.
This scientist created the first thermometer, however, devoid of a scale, as well as a hydrostatic balance. The proportional compass, invented by G. Galileo, is still used in drawing. Designed by G. Galileo and a microscope. He did not give a large increase, but he was suitable for studying insects.
The influence exerted by G. Galileo's discoveries on the further development of science was truly fateful. And A. Einstein was right when he called G. Galileo "the father of modern science."
Sources:
- Galileo. Discoveries
The name of Galileo Galilei is known not only to scientists, but also to many ordinary schoolchildren. The great Italian physicist, scientist, astronomer and mechanic, as well as philologist and poet, spent his whole life fighting against scholasticism and said that the basis of knowledge is experience.
Galileo was born on February 15, 1564 in the Italian city of Pisa. When the kid grows up and becomes a guy with a higher education, he will present the world with a telescope, with the possibility of 32x magnification. Galileo Galilei discovered spots on the Sun and mountains on the Moon, phases on Venus and four moons of Jupiter.
Such great discoveries were made thanks to the scientist's ability to follow and draw conclusions from everything he saw. Maestro laid the foundations of the current theory of relativity. Galileo thermoscope, which became the prototype of the thermometer. But the greatest discovery of Galileo lies in the heliocentric system of the world put forward by him. This system assumed the motion of the Earth. Before this discovery, people adhered to the point of view that the planet Earth is motionless and it is around it that all the other luminaries revolve.
Because of his scientific research, the scientist was subjected to the Inquisition. The Catholic Church has called a heretical delusion, contrary to the Holy Scriptures, thoughts about the movement of the planet Earth. However, the degree of his guilt was not so serious as to burn the scientist at the stake. Galileo was sentenced to prison. It was only in modern times that he was justified by Pope John Paul II.
In January 1642, the world lost Galileo Galilei. He was 78 years old, and his merits were not even honored so that the scientist was buried with honors. Galileo Galilei is a scientist who made the modern world much more perfect.
The scientific activity of Galileo Galilei is considered the beginning of the existence of physics as a science in today's sense of the word. In addition to his fundamental discoveries, this great scientist invented and designed many applied devices.
Fundamental principles and laws of motion
The main discoveries of Galileo are considered to be two basic principles of mechanics, they had a significant impact not only on the development of mechanics, but also on physics in general. The first of them is the principle of constancy of the acceleration of gravity, the second is the principle of relativity for uniform and rectilinear motion.
In addition to these two principles, Galileo Galilei discovered the laws of a constant period of oscillation and addition of motions, inertia and free fall. He discovered the most important regularities in the movement of bodies thrown at an angle, as well as in their movement along an inclined plane.
In 1638, Galileo's book "Conversations and Mathematical Proofs" was published, in which he presented his thoughts on the laws of motion in a mathematical and academic form. The range of problems considered in the book was very wide - from problems of statics to the study of the resistance of materials and the laws of motion of a pendulum.
Invention of instruments and astronomical discoveries
In 1609, Galileo created an instrument that is an analogue of a modern spyglass, it was based on an optical one, in which convex and concave lenses were involved. With the help of this device, the scientist observed the night sky. Subsequently, Galileo made a full-fledged telescope for that time from this device.
Galileo's observations turned the ideas about the cosmos that existed at that time. He discovered that the Moon is covered with mountains and hollows, before that it was considered smooth, discovered the phases of Venus and sunspots, indicated that the Milky Way consists of stars, and Jupiter is surrounded by four satellites.
The astronomical discoveries of Galileo, his conclusions and justifications resolved the dispute between the supporters of the teachings of Copernicus and the followers of Aristotle and Ptolemy. He was given obvious arguments showing that the Ptolemaic system was erroneous.
In 1610, the scientist reversed the telescope - a microscope, he simply changed the distance between the lenses in the telescope he had already created. Back in 1592, Galileo designed a thermoscope - an analogue of a modern thermometer, and after that he invented many of the most important applied devices.
The rings of Saturn are very thin: tens to hundreds of meters thick. They are located in the plane of Saturn's equator, which is inclined to the plane of the earth's orbit by 27 degrees. Therefore, when Saturn moves around the Sun, the earthly observer sees the rings either open or they become invisible when they are located edge to the Sun and the observer. It was because of this disappearance of the rings that Galileo could not make the discovery.
Observing celestial bodies with a telescope, Galileo discovered the phases of Venus, similar to the phases of the moon. The scientist came to the conclusion that Venus and other planets do not glow, but only reflect the light of the Sun, and the order of the phases of Venus corresponds to the Copernican heliocentric system.
In addition, Galileo established that the illumination of Mars does not change, it has no phases. This means that Mars revolves around the Sun, and the Earth is inside its orbit.
Galileo discovered four moons of Jupiter. This was a weighty argument in support of Copernicus' theory: he considered Jupiter and its satellites as a model of the solar system.
Galileo discovered mountains and craters on the Moon, which indicated that the Moon is similar in nature to the Earth.
Observing the Milky Way through a telescope, Galileo found that it consists of a large number of stars that are indistinguishable to the naked eye. This was consistent with the theory of Copernicus, from which the huge distance of the stars followed
2. Italian astronomer, monk Giuseppe Piazzi founded an observatory in Palermo on the island of Sicily. He was engaged in compiling a catalog of stars in the constellation of Gemini. On the evening of January 1, 1801, he discovered a small star that was missing from the star charts. A few days later, the scientist noticed that the star moved across the sky, as a planet located further than Mars should move. Poor observation conditions and illness interrupted Piazzi's observations.
The German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss learned about the discovery of an unknown celestial body. He developed a method that made it possible, from a few observations, to calculate the orbit of a celestial body and calculate its position in the future. A year later, a celestial body was found in a calculated place and Piazzi proposed to call it Ceres, after the ancient Roman goddess of fertility, the patroness of the island of Sicily. For a long time, Ceres was considered a planet in the solar system.
After some time, more new planets were discovered between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Even at high magnification, they looked like faint stars, so the new planets began to be called asteroids, i.e. "starlike". In 2006, after clarifying the concept of "planet" by the International Astronomical Union, Ceres began to be called a dwarf planet.
There are currently 8 planets in the solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) and 5 dwarf planets. Discovered in 1930, Pluto is much smaller than other planets and even the Moon. At the end of the 20th century, other objects similar to Pluto began to be discovered beyond the orbit of Neptune. The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in 2006 classified Pluto and three more distant celestial bodies, like Ceres, as dwarf planets.
“Exceptional fortitude was required to extract the laws of nature from specific phenomena that were always before everyone’s eyes, but the explanation of which nevertheless eluded the inquisitive gaze of philosophers,” the famous French mathematician and astronomer Lagrange wrote about Galilee.
Discoveries of Galileo Galilei in astronomy
In 1609, Galileo Galilei independently built his first telescope with a convex lens and a concave eyepiece. At first, his telescope gave a magnification of about 3 times. Soon he managed to build a telescope giving a magnification of 32 times. The term itself telescope also introduced into science by Galileo (at the suggestion of Federico Cesi). A number of discoveries made by Galileo with a telescope contributed to the approval heliocentric system of the world, which Galileo actively promoted, and the refutation of the views of the geocentrists Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Galileo's telescope had one converging lens as an objective, and a diverging lens served as an eyepiece. Such an optical scheme gives an uninverted (terrestrial) image. The main disadvantages of the Galilean telescope are the very small field of view. Such a system is still used in theatrical binoculars, and sometimes in homemade amateur telescopes.
Galileo made the first telescopic observations of celestial bodies on January 7, 1610. They showed that the Moon, like the Earth, has a complex relief - covered with mountains and craters. Known since ancient times, Galileo explained the ashen light of the Moon as the result of sunlight reflected by the Earth hitting it. All this refuted Aristotle's teaching about the opposition of "earthly" and "heavenly": the Earth became a body of the same nature as the heavenly bodies, and this served as an indirect argument in favor of the Copernican system: if the other planets move, then it is natural to assume that the Earth also moves. Galileo also discovered libration Moon (its slow oscillation) and quite accurately estimated the height of the lunar mountains.
The planet Venus appeared to Galileo in the telescope not as a brilliant point, but as a bright crescent, similar to the moon.
The most interesting thing was the observation of the bright planet Jupiter. Through the telescope, Jupiter seemed to the astronomer no longer a bright point, but rather a large circle. Near this circle in the sky there were three stars, and a week later Galileo discovered the fourth star.
Looking at the picture, one might wonder why Galileo did not immediately discover all four satellites: after all, they are so clearly visible in the photograph! But we must remember that Galileo's telescope was very weak. It turned out that all four stars not only follow Jupiter in its movements across the sky, but also revolve around this large planet. So, four moons were found at Jupiter at once - four satellites. Thus, Galileo refuted one of the arguments of the opponents of heliocentrism: the Earth cannot revolve around the Sun, since the Moon revolves around it. After all, Jupiter obviously had to revolve either around the Earth (as in the geocentric system) or around the Sun (as in the heliocentric system). Galileo observed the period of revolution of these satellites for a year and a half, but the accuracy of the estimate was achieved only in Newton's epoch. Galileo suggested using observations of the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites to solve the most important problem of determining longitude at sea. He himself was unable to develop an implementation of this approach, although he worked on it until the end of his life; Cassini (1681) was the first to succeed, however, due to the difficulties of observing at sea, Galileo's method was used mainly by land expeditions, and after the invention of the marine chronometer (mid-18th century), the problem was closed.
Galileo also discovered (independently of Fabricius and Harriot) sunspots(dark areas on the Sun, the temperature of which is lowered by about 1500 K compared to the surrounding areas).
The existence of spots and their constant variability disproved Aristotle's thesis about the perfection of the heavens (as opposed to the "sublunar world"). Based on their observations, Galileo concluded that The sun rotates around its axis, estimated the period of this rotation and the position of the axis of the sun.
Galileo also established that Venus changes phases. On the one hand, this proved that it shines with the reflected light of the Sun (about which there was no clarity in the astronomy of the previous period). On the other hand, the order of phase change corresponded to the heliocentric system: in Ptolemy's theory, Venus, as the "lower" planet, was always closer to the Earth than the Sun, and "full Venus" was impossible.
Galileo also noted the strange "appendages" of Saturn, but the opening of the ring was prevented by the weakness of the telescope. 50 years later, the ring of Saturn was discovered and described by Huygens, who had a 92x telescope at his disposal.
Galileo argued that when observed through a telescope, the planets are visible as disks, the apparent dimensions of which in various configurations change in such a ratio as follows from the theory of Copernicus. However, the diameter of the stars during observations with a telescope does not increase. This disproved the estimates of the apparent and real size of the stars, which were used by some astronomers as an argument against the heliocentric system.
The Milky Way, which to the naked eye looks like a continuous glow, was revealed to Galileo in the form of individual stars, which confirmed Democritus' conjecture, and a huge number of previously unknown stars became visible.
Galileo wrote the book Dialogue Concerning the Two Systems of the World, in which he explained in detail why he accepted the system of Copernicus and not Ptolemy. The main provisions of this dialogue are as follows:
- Venus and Mercury never find themselves in opposition, which means that they revolve around the Sun, and their orbit passes between the Sun and the Earth.
- Mars has opposition. From the analysis of changes in brightness during the movement of Mars, Galileo concluded that this planet also revolves around the Sun, but in this case the Earth is located inside its orbits. He made similar conclusions for Jupiter and Saturn.
It remains to choose between two systems of the world: the Sun (with planets) revolves around the Earth or the Earth revolves around the Sun. The observed pattern of planetary motions is the same in both cases, which guarantees principle of relativity formulated by Galileo himself. Therefore, additional arguments are needed for the choice, among which Galileo cites greater simplicity and naturalness of the Copernican model (however, he rejected Kepler's system with elliptical orbits of the planets).
Galileo explained why the earth's axis does not rotate when the earth revolves around the sun; To explain this phenomenon, Copernicus introduced a special "third motion" of the Earth. Galileo showed by experience that the axis of a freely moving top keeps its direction by itself("Letters to Ingoli"):
“A similar phenomenon is evidently found in any body that is in a freely suspended state, as I have shown to many; Yes, and you yourself can verify this by placing a floating wooden ball in a vessel with water, which you will take in your hands, and then, stretching them out, begin to rotate around yourself; you will see how this ball will rotate around itself in the opposite direction to your rotation; it will complete its full revolution at the same time as you complete yours."
Galileo made a serious mistake, believing that the phenomenon of tides proves the rotation of the Earth around its axis. But he gives other serious arguments in favor of the daily rotation of the Earth:
- It is difficult to agree that the entire Universe makes a daily revolution around the Earth (especially given the enormous distances to the stars); it is more natural to explain the observed picture by the rotation of one Earth. The synchronous participation of the planets in the daily rotation would also violate the observed pattern, according to which the farther the planet is from the Sun, the slower it moves.
- Even the huge Sun has axial rotation.
To prove the rotation of the Earth, Galileo suggests mentally imagining that a cannon shell or a falling body deviates slightly from the vertical during the fall, but his calculation shows that this deviation is negligible.
Galileo also made the correct observation that the rotation of the Earth must influence the dynamics of the winds. All these effects were discovered much later.
Other Achievements of Galileo Galilei
He also invented:
- Hydrostatic balance for determining the specific gravity of solids.
- The first thermometer, still without a scale (1592).
- Proportional compass used in drafting (1606).
- Microscope (1612); with it, Galileo studied insects.
The circle of his interests was very wide: Galileo was also engaged in optics, acoustics, color theory and magnetism, hydrostatics(science that studies the balance of liquids), resistance of materials, problems of fortification(military science of artificial closures and barriers). Tried to measure the speed of light. He empirically measured the density of air and gave a value of 1/400 (compare: Aristotle has 1/10, the true modern value is 1/770).
Galileo also formulated the law of the indestructibility of matter.
Having become acquainted with all the achievements of Galileo Galilei in science, it is impossible not to be interested in his personality. Therefore, we will tell about the main stages of his life path.
From the biography of Galileo Galilei
The future Italian scientist (physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician) was born in 1564 in Pisa. As you already know, he is the author of outstanding astronomical discoveries. But his adherence to the heliocentric system of the world led to serious conflicts with the Catholic Church, which made his life very difficult.
He was born into a noble family, his father was a famous musician and music theorist. His passion for art was also passed on to his son: Galileo was engaged in music and drawing, and also had a literary talent.
Education
He received his primary education in the monastery closest to his home, he studied all his life with great eagerness - at the University of Pisa he studied medicine, at the same time he was fond of geometry. He studied at the university for only about 3 years - his father could no longer pay for his son's studies, but the news of the talented young man reached the highest officials, he was patronized by the Marquis del Monte and the Tuscan Duke Ferdinand I of Medici.
Scientific activity
Galileo later taught at the University of Pisa and then at the more prestigious University of Padua, where his most prolific academic years began. Here he is actively engaged in astronomy - he invents his first own telescope. The four satellites of Jupiter he discovered, he named after the sons of his patron Medici (now they are called the Galilean satellites). Galileo described the first discoveries with the telescope in the essay “The Starry Messenger”, this book became a real bestseller of its time, and the inhabitants of Europe hastily acquired telescopes for themselves. Galileo becomes the most famous scientist in Europe, odes are composed in his honor, where he is compared with Columbus.
During these years, Galileo enters into a civil marriage, in which he has a son and two daughters.
Of course, such people, in addition to adherents, always have enough ill-wishers, Galileo did not escape this either. Especially ill-wishers were outraged by his propaganda of the heliocentric system of worlds, because a detailed justification for the concept of the Earth's immobility and refutation of hypotheses about its rotation was contained in Aristotle's treatise "On the Sky" and in Ptolemy's Almagest.
In 1611, Galileo decided to go to Rome to convince Pope Paul V that the ideas of Copernicus were fully compatible with Catholicism. He was well received, he showed them his telescope, giving careful and circumspect explanations. The cardinals created a commission to find out whether it was a sin to look at the sky through a pipe, but they came to the conclusion that it was permissible. Roman astronomers openly discussed the question of whether Venus moves around the Earth or around the Sun (the change in the phases of Venus clearly spoke in favor of the second option).
But denunciations to the Inquisition began. And when Galileo in 1613 Galileo published the book "Letters on Sunspots", in which he openly spoke in favor of the Copernican system, the Roman Inquisition began the first case against Galileo on charges of heresy. The last mistake of Galileo was the call to Rome to express its final attitude towards the teachings of Copernicus. Then the Catholic Church decided to ban his teaching with the explanation that " the church does not object to the interpretation of Copernicanism as a convenient mathematical device, but accepting it as a reality would mean admitting that the previous, traditional interpretation of the biblical text was erroneous».
March 5, 1616 Rome officially defines heliocentrism as a dangerous heresy. The book of Copernicus was banned.
The church ban on heliocentrism, in the truth of which Galileo was convinced, was unacceptable to the scientist. He began to think about how, without formally violating the ban, to continue the defense of the truth. And I decided to publish a book containing a neutral discussion of different points of view. He wrote this book for 16 years, collecting materials, honing his arguments and waiting for the right moment. Finally (in 1630) it was finished, this book - "Dialogue about the two main systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican" , but was published only in 1632. The book is written in the form of a dialogue between three lovers of science: a Copernican, a neutral participant and an adherent of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Although there are no authorial conclusions in the book, the strength of the arguments in favor of the Copernican system speaks for itself. But in the neutral participant, the Pope recognized himself and his arguments and was furious. A few months later, the book was banned and withdrawn from sale, and Galileo was summoned to Rome for the trial of the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy. After the first interrogation, he was taken into custody. There is an opinion that torture was used against him, that Galileo was threatened with death, he was interrogated in the torture chamber, where terrible tools were laid out before the eyes of the prisoner: leather funnels through which a huge amount of water was poured into the human stomach, iron boots (they screwed legs of the tortured), tongs that broke bones ...
In any case, he was faced with a choice: either he would repent and renounce his "delusions", or he would suffer the fate of Giordano Bruno. He could not bear the threats and retracted his work.
But Galileo remained a prisoner of the Inquisition until his death. He was strictly forbidden to talk to anyone about the motion of the Earth. Nevertheless, Galileo secretly worked on an essay in which he asserted the truth about the Earth and the heavenly bodies. After the verdict, Galileo was settled in one of the Medici villas, and five months later he was allowed to go home, and he settled in Arcetri, next to the monastery where his daughters were. Here he spent the rest of his life under house arrest and under the constant supervision of the Inquisition.
Some time later, after the death of his beloved daughter, Galileo completely lost his sight, but continued his scientific research, relying on faithful students, among whom was Torricelli. Only once, shortly before his death, the Inquisition allowed the blind and seriously ill Galileo to leave Arcetri and settle in Florence for treatment. At the same time, under pain of prison, he was forbidden to leave the house and discuss the "damned opinion" about the movement of the Earth.
Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, at the age of 78, in his bed. They buried him in Archetri without honors, the Pope also did not allow him to erect a monument.
Later, the only grandson of Galileo also took the monastic vows and burned the priceless manuscripts of the scientist that he kept as ungodly. He was the last representative of the Galilean family.
Afterword
In 1737, the ashes of Galileo, as he requested, were transferred to the Basilica of Santa Croce, where on March 17 he was solemnly buried next to Michelangelo.
In 1835, books that advocated heliocentrism were struck off the list of banned books.
From 1979 to 1981, at the initiative of Pope John Paul II, a commission for the rehabilitation of Galileo worked, and on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II officially recognized that the Inquisition had made a mistake in 1633, forcing the scientist to renounce the theory of Copernicus by force.
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