Though certainly not, as is often claimed, the first person to use a telescope to observe the sky, he did more than anyone else to popularize the device and is rightly credited as the father of modern astronomy. A devout Catholic, his writings on the Copernican model of the universe gave him trouble with the church, despite his continued insistence that his work in the area was purely theoretical, and depite his close friendship with Maffeo Barberini (Pope Urban VIII, who presided throughout the ordeal). Recent scholarship has highlighted the fact that much of Galileo's problems with the Inquisition stemmed more from his lack of judgment than from any great desire by the Catholic Church to suppress his ideas.
He discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and he was the first westerner to observe sunspots (there is indication that chinese astronomers had already observed them).
His experimental work in dynamics paved the way for Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
Many of Galileo's theories exist today only in his notes and drawings. He created sketches of such imagined devices as a candle/mirror, which would reflect light through an entire home, an automatic tomato picker, a pocket comb that doubled as an eating utensil, and what appeared to be a crude form of ball point pen.
Bertolt Brecht wrote a drama entitled Galileo which, rather than being concerned about the story of Galilei, was primarily dealing with the duties of scientists and the nature of totalitarian thought.
![[Home]](wikipedia.png)