Galileo Gallilei :: essays research papers

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. Galileo was the first of seven children of Vincenzio Galilei, a trader and Giula Ammannati, an tweedy woman who married below her class. When Galileo was a young boy, his father moved the family moved to Florence. Galileo moved into a nearby monastery with the intentions of becoming a monk, but he remaining the monastery when he was 15 because his father disapproved of his son becoming a monk. In November of 1581, Vincenzio Galilei had Galileo enrolled in the University of Pisa School of Medicine because he wanted his son to turn a doctor to carry on the family fortune. Vincenzio thought that Galileo should be able to provide for the family when he died, and his sister would need a dowry soon. Galileo had other plans, and in early 1583 he began spending his time with the mathematics professors instead of the medical ones. When his father lgain of this, he was furious and traveled 60 miles from Florence to Pisa just to watch his son with the knowledge that he had been "neglecting his studies." The grand dukes mathematician intervened and persuaded Vincenzio to allow Galileo to study mathematics on the condition that after one year, all of Galileos throw would be cut off and he was on his own.&9 In the spring of 1585, Galileo skipped his final exams and left the university without a degree. He began finding work as a math tutor. In November of 1589, Galileo found a position as a professor of mathematics at the university of Pisa, the same one he had left without a degree four years before. Galileo was a brilliant teacher, but his radical ways of thinking and open criticism of Aristotles didacticss were not unimpeachable to the other professors at the university. They felt that he was too radical and that his teachings were not suitable. In 1592, his three-year contract was not renewed. 1n 1592, he landed a job teaching mathematics at the University of Padua with the help of some aristo cratic friends. After his fathers death, Galileo supported many relatives (including his brother Michelangelo and his family) and the sum of money he earned as a professor was not nearly enough. He began to tutor on the side to make extra money, including Prince Cosimo, the son of Grand Duchess Christine of Tuscany, which helped Galileo with some of his fiscal problems.