Life of Galileo Context Study

Discovery of the Solar System For many thousands of years, humanity, with a few notable exceptions, did not recognize the existence of the Solar System. People believed the Earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky.

Geocentric Model Ptolemaic System In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, or the Ptolemaic system), is a description of the cosmos where Earth is at the orbital centre of all celestial bodies. This model served as the predominant cosmological system in many ancient civilizations such as ancient Greece. As such, they assumed that the Sun, Moon, stars, and naked eye planets circled Earth, including the noteworthy systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system. This means the Sun is at the centre of the system, not the Earth.

Galileo Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) improved the telescope, with which he made several important astronomical discoveries, including the four largest moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the rings of Saturn, and made detailed observations of sunspots. He developed the laws for falling bodies based on pioneering quantitative experiments which he analysed mathematically.

And then there’s this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1awvC1l7mM (3 minute history of Galileo) http://youtu.be/RBFHVOLhxOk (religion for atheists)