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Galileo, or Galilei.
Galileo was born in Pisa, in 1564. His father was a broken-down nobleman who wanted his boy to be a doctor and a philosopher.
The boy, however, drifted to science and mathematics and became one of the world's greatest astronomers and physicists.
Here are some of the discoveries of Galileo:
a. Hydrostatic balance to measure specific gravity.
b. Velocity of falling bodies.
c. Improved the thermometer.
d. With a telescope constructed by himself he found 1. Moon had uneven surface. 2. Measured height of mountains in the moon. 3. Found stars made up nebulae. 4. Jupiter's satellites. 5. Saturn's rings. 6. Sun spots. 7. Phases of Mars, Venus, and Mercury. 8 Proved the Copernican theory.
Of course Galileo was denouced as a heretic because the church was ignorant and cruel in his day. He was summoned to Rome twice and forced to say on his knees that the truths he had discovered were false. He was sentenced to the dungeon for an indefinite time. Finally he was banished from Rome and kept virtually a prisoner until his death.
Strange as it may seem, Galileo was buried in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, where Michelangelo and other notables are buried. We have in our walls a small piece of Galileo's tomb and a piece of the wall surrounding the church of Santa Croce. A picture of the church is shown below.
[Black and white photograph of the front exterior of a church building]
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