Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy.
Galileo is a man for our times. A time when science is once again becoming heresy. A time when scientists are being pressured to put forward ideas that are archaic.
Galileo was a scientist who built a telescope strong enough to observe and study the stars, discovered four of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn’s rings, and made his most blasphemous discovery, the one where the Earth is not the center of the Universe, and that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. He was heavily judged during the Inquisition for this, and almost put to death. At the last minute his sentence was commuted to house arrest for the rest of his life.
You can read much more of Galileo on his Wikipedia page and more about the “Galileo Affair” – his trial and conviction – also on Wikipedia.
Galileo died on January 8, 1642, while on house arrest in Arcetri, Italy and is buried in Santa Croce in Florence, Italy.
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. — Galileo
Read more about the life of Galileo Galilei in these titles on amazon. The last one on your right, Galileo’s Dream, by Kim Stanley Robinson is actually my favorite book on the scientist, and is a work of science fiction which explores the possibilities of Galileo experiencing traveling to the moons of Saturn.
