How Did Galileo Changed Western Culture

Galileo is easily known as a father of science and one of the many who changed the Western culture. He is known for climbing to the top of the Tower of Pisa while carrying two balls of different weights and dropping them. The balls hit the ground at the same time proving that Aristotle was wrong about his statement “heavier objects fall quicker than lighter object when released form the same height”. He is particularly know for discovering how the Earth moved in accordance to the sun and other planets in the solar system. He came from a noble family originally known as the Bonaiuti family. Galileo Galilei first arrived in Rome when he was twenty-three years old in the year 1587. He went there in hopes to get an appointment at the university.

He did get the appointment he was hoping for and this led him to his first job at the University of Pisa in 1589. Shortly after he moved to the University of Padua. He spent the next eighteen years there. During these years he made publications on all of his astronomical findings. The publication of these finding made him famous. Famous in good ways and bad. The negativity towards him came when he began defending in public the Copernican view that the Earth is in motion and that it revolves around the Sun. These findings went against the Church. During this time anyone that went against the teachings of the Bible were punished. They were usually tortured and summoned to a trial without knowing what their chargers were. His finding went against the views that the Earth was at the center of the Universe. He was going against tradition and many Christian Doctrines.
First let’s back track on how he came about discovering that in fact the Earth is not the center of the Universe.

In 1609 Galileo introduced a new scientific instrument, the optic tube or the spyglass. This is known today as the telescope. He got this idea when he heard about a Dutch artisan who put two lenses together and when he did this it caused the images he looked at through the lenses to be increasingly larger than they were in actual life. So Galileo took this idea and ran with it. He took to his own ways and built a similar device only much stronger and pointed it up at the sky. What he saw was unbelievable to him. Everything they has once known about the sky was suddenly wrong. The sun and the moon were nothing like they thought. The naked eye saw them as smooth, perfectly round objects made of matter that could not be altered. This couldn’t be any farther from the truth. He discovered that the moon was covered in craters and full of irregularities. The Sun was found to be covered I spots that were constantly moving across

it.
After he pointed his telescope towards several plants he then realized that all the planets, including Earth, revolve around the sun.

This discovery did not sit well with the people of that time. He shared his discovery with everyone and eventually wrote a book called The Starry Messenger in 1610. This book focused more on his findings of the moons of Jupiter. A few years later he wrote a book titled The Assayer in 1623. This book is when he gained a lot of his followers. One of his biggest supporters was Pope Urban VIII. He sort made Galileo his right hand man. Years after that, in 1632, is when he wrote his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. This is when he openly spoke about finding out the Earth not being the center of the Universe. This is when all the issues came about. He was summoned to a trail for heresy in 1633. Leading up to the trial a group of eleven theologians declared that these findings were heretical. Those who believed Galileo were said to be heretics. Shortly after the book was published the Pope sent Cardinal Robert to warn Galileo that he should let his findings go and to not speak of them anymore. He was also told that if he did not obey the warning that he would be prosecuted as a heretic. However, this warning did not stop him. He continued to teach his findings. After he refused to abandon his Copernicus theory he lost the support of Pope Urban VIII. The Pope demanded that his book was to be taken out of circulation. He was then

under investigation and later charged with heresy. Fortunately Galileo was not tortured or refused the right to a defense like many other who were tried for heresy. However, it was far for a fair trial. The same man who brought the charges against Galileo and did the interrogation is the same man that determined the outcome of the trail. So basically the outcome of the trial was already determined before it had ever started. In no way was this man ever going to agree with Galileo’s defense. That would make him seem not only week, but also okay with going against the teaching so the church. One of his consequences for being found guilty of heresy was to renounce his views and to never defend Copernicanism again not matter what. After he publicly embarrassed himself he was sent off to Siena for a while. He was allowed back to his villa in Arcetri near Florence a few years later. He remained under house arrest, bedridden and blind for the rest of his life until he died in 1642.
A conflict with the church was never what he wanted. He only wanted to share the amazing things he was discovering through his invention of the telescope. The issue came around when other began to attack his work. Through the whole duration of his findings and his trail he stayed a devoted catholic. His two daughter even grew up to both become nuns. However, even after his brutal trail, Galileo’s legacy lives on.