Galileo galilei
The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied byGalileo as the subject of kinematics. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter(named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and otherinstruments.
Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric view that the Earth is atthe centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophersand clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church neverthelesscondemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture",[10] and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work,...
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