My Hero: Galileo Galilei

I chose Galileo as my hero. He was born in 1564 in Pisa, Italy where he grew up with his brothers and sisters. His father taught music and was a famous musician. He and his family moved to the city of Florence when he was 10 years old where he began his education at monastery.

Galileo was a good musician and an excellent student. He originally wanted to become a doctor, so he went to the University of Pisa to study medicine in 1581.While he was at university, Galileo became interested in the subjects of physics and math. One of his first scientific observations was with a lamp hanging from the ceiling in the cathedral. He noticed that no matter how far the lamp swung, it took the same amount of time to swing backend forth and this observation didn't agree with common scientific principles.

In his adult life in 1585, Galileo left the university and got a job as a teacher. He began to experiment with pendulums, levers, balls and other objects. He tried to describe how they moved using mathematical equations. He even invented a measuring device called the hydrostatic balance.

During the time of Galileo, there weren't really “scientists “ as we know them today. People studied the works of the classical philosophers and thinkers such as Aristotle. They didn't run experiments or test out the ideas. They just believed them to be true. Galileo thought differently and he wanted to test other principals but this way of thinking made some people mad. They didn’t want the old ways to be questioned. He moved away to the University of Padua where he could experiment and discuss new ideas.

In 1609 Galileo built his own version of a telescope that was a lot more improved than the original telescope that was invented and pretty soon it was being used through all of Europe to study the planets and stars. He made many discoveries with it. In 1632 he wrote a book describing why he thought that the earth orbited the sun and the catholic church considered it assign and sentenced him to life in prison, but later on decided to let him live at his home in Tuscany under house arrest.

Galileo still wrote books while he was under house arrest, but later on in life he became blind and died on January 8, 1642.I believe Galileo is a hero because without him, we wouldn't be inspired to experiment with ideas.