Galileo's Pisa experiment

Stephen Hawking praises his legacy. Einstein called him the father of modern science. Galileo's impact was extensive and the town of Pisa reflects it.

Some say that Galileo really did test his law of free fall from the leaning tower of Pisa. The candelabra in the cathedral opposite is called "the lamp of Galileo" because he's meant to have observed its swings while considering the isochronous nature of the pendulum. That is, that all pendulum swings are the same.

Galileo’s theory of pendulums was one that proved incorrect, but it's not surprising that some of Galileo's experiments didn't really work. He wasn't afraid to turn his ideas around. Indeed, he pushed science by creating crazier experiments and in the end his methods yielded results.

Two-thousand-and-nine has been named the International Year of Astronomy to coincide with the 400th anniversary of his astronomical achievements. Stephen Hawking praises his legacy and Einstein called Galileo the father of modern science. His impact on the world of science and in turn on his home town of Pisa is extensive.

This Pisan scientist lent a particular hand to modern physics through his works on the uniform acceleration of objects and the principal of inertia. But his most renowned success was the development of the power of the early telescope. Through his telescopes he sighted Jupiter and its moons, the phases of Venus, Saturn and its rings, as well as sunspots. He reported the idea of lunar mountains and craters and theorised on the motion of the Earth using the tides' ebb and flow.

Galileo's studies supported a heliocentric view of the world, following Copernicus. The sun, he claimed, was the centre of heavenly bodies and not the Earth, which was the religious doctrine of the time.  Although Catholic throughout his lifetime, he was forced to renounce his views and lived under house arrest by orders of the Roman Inquisition during the last years of his life.

Galileo died while still under house arrest, but the theory of heliocentrism was one that did prove correct and the legacy of his body of work has remained imprinted in the city of his birth. The Museum of Scientific Instruments can be found in Pisa. Its exhibits include almost 3000 instruments used for calculation and scientific experiment and Galileo's compass is amongst them.

The University of Pisa has a high reputation for science, physics and maths. Galileo was professor of mathematics here in 1589 and the university instituted Italy's first computer science course in 1960. The legacy of computer science is already clear.

And definitely not least, where would Pisa be without the careful and exact mathematics behind the structural work and balanced weighting that maintains its tower's compelling and time-honoured lean?

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