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Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei (/ ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ l eɪ oʊ ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ l eɪ /, US also / ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ l iː oʊ-/; Italian: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛːi]) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian [a] astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath.
For advancing heliocentric theory Galileo was forced to recant Copernicanism and was put under house arrest for the last few years of his life. According to J. L. Heilbron, informed contemporaries of Galileo's "appreciated that the reference to heresy in connection with Galileo or Copernicus had no general or theological significance." [133]
Galileo began his telescopic observations in the later part of 1609, and by March 1610 was able to publish a small book, The Starry Messenger (Sidereus Nuncius), describing some of his discoveries: mountains on the Moon, lesser moons in orbit around Jupiter, and the resolution of what had been thought to be very cloudy masses in the sky (nebulae) into collections of stars too faint to see ...
A reason for the absence of Tycho's system (in spite of many references to Tycho and his work in the book) may be sought in Galileo's theory of the tides, which provided the original title and organizing principle of the Dialogue. While the Copernican and Tychonic systems are equivalent geometrically, they are quite different dynamically.
The play stays generally faithful to Galileo's science and timeline thereof, but takes significant liberties with his personal life. Galileo did in fact use a telescope, observe the moons of Jupiter, advocate for the heliocentric model, observe sunspots, investigate buoyancy, and write on physics, and did visit the Vatican twice to defend his ...
The Discourse on Comets (Italian: Discorso delle Comete) was a pamphlet published in 1619 with Mario Guiducci as the named author, though in reality it was mostly the work of Galileo Galilei. In it Galileo conjectured that comets were not physical bodies but atmospheric effects like the aurora borealis. [1]: 62
In December 1610, Galileo Galilei used his telescope to observe that Venus showed all phases, just like the Moon. He thought that while this observation was incompatible with the Ptolemaic system, it was a natural consequence of the heliocentric system.
At the time of Sidereus Nuncius ' publication, Galileo was a mathematician at the University of Padua and had recently received a lifetime contract for his work in building more powerful telescopes. He desired to return to Florence, and in hopes of gaining patronage there, he dedicated Sidereus Nuncius to his former pupil, now the Grand Duke of ...