of the earth and the moon. The Church would not tolerate Galileo’s spreading of beliefs that contradicted its own position. Newton and Bacon also had many ideas that the Church refused to believe. The Europeans believed many things that are different than what the many innovators later proved. One innovator that stands out among all, is Galileo Galilei. This innovator was said to have set the Scientific Revolution in motion. Although Galileo had many ideas, they were not all original, and some can even be traced back to ancient Greece. Galileo often criticized Aristotle, but he later realized that he had set out the basic questions we must answer, if we want to know how the world works. He showed how instruments designed according to the principles of optics, a mathematical science, could extend the powers of the human senses, making them stronger and more reliable. Galileo worked very hard as a student and for his family. When his father died in 1591, he found himself burdened with the duties of head of the family. Later in 1592, he got a better job than he had before, teaching mathematics at the University of Padua, at three times his salary. Padua was the premier university of Italy, and one of the best in all of Europe. There, Galileo made many friends with some of the leading minds of Italy. At Padua, he carried on his investigation of the simplest movements we can observe. Later, by about 1609, he had worked out the main lines of this new science of uniformly accelerated motion, and told his friends that he was preparing a book on it. At this time, he was distracted by hearing of a new and remarkable invention, the telescope. He saw this invention a potential for astronomy. To begin with, he looked at the Moon, and noticed the it had great mountain ranges. However, his most dramatic sight was the “stars,” new worlds which humans had never seen before. Among these Galileo noticed three next to the planet Jupiter. ...
