Galileo: The Father of Modern Science

Ahnaf Raihan Senior Division Individual Website

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From all the possible topics, I chose one that related to my interests in math and science, as well as sufficiently covered this years theme, Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History. Galileos conflict with the Catholic Church embodied a separation of religion and science, an idea that had been deemed as heresy during his time. It appealed to me that this was not a typical revolution, implying violence and war; instead it was a revolution of the mind, the way humans perceived the world. I conducted my research by first studying background information on Galileo, as well as reading about the scientific revolution to learn about how the setting impacted his observations and ideas. I knew that the topic I had chosen would restrain me in the use of primary sources due to how long ago it had taken place, but I was still able to study Galileos writings and publications to understand how he thought and planned to accomplish his goal of separating science and religion. Once I understood the background, I was able to read into the specifics of his life, and his affairs with the people around him. Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, a book written by David Wotton was a great tool for my research, as it combined a story of his life as well as pictures of his inventions and books. I chose to present my topic through a website because as time goes on, our work and studies will inevitably move to the internet. I wanted to take advantage of the tools a website had to offer. An easy to navigate medium, as well as the possibility to add videos and embed pictures for visual aid; sub-categorize information to find what you want, when you want it while at the same time efficiently relaying the information I had gathered from my research. Galileos accomplishments revolutionized science. He battled the Catholic Church while at the same time making new discoveries in the field of astronomy, math, and physics; many of

Raihan 1 which define the subjects today. After Galileos pursuit of the Copernican theory, the Church reacted by convicting him guilty of heresy, but at this point Galileo had already made a lasting impact on society around him. Scientists had adopted his theory and continued his research until Heliocentricity was finally viewed as the truth. Galileos observations were directly opposed to the Churchs ideas, but his continuing work proved them wrong. Finally, in 1992 the Catholic Church apologized to Galileo, and recognized him as the man who completely reformed the relationship between religion and science.