A professor at the University of Padua once ran a small shop selling scientific instruments to supplement his meager salary. Upon hearing rumors of a "spyglass," he began constructing his own. He prepared a tube and fitted two glass lenses at either end—one convex and one concave. His first attempt magnified objects nine times; eventually, he succeeded in creating a powerful telescope that could magnify up to 1,000 times.
While others used the telescope to observe distant ships on the horizon, he turned his gaze toward the heavens. He observed the Moon. At the time, it was widely believed that the Moon was a perfect, smooth sphere. But through his lens, he discovered that the lunar surface was rugged and mountainous, much like the Earth.
Just yesterday in history, January 7th, 1610, he used his improved telescope to discover four moons orbiting Jupiter—a finding that challenged the Earth-centered view of the universe.
On January 8th, 1642, Galileo Galilei passed away in his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, where he had been living under house arrest. Tradition holds that he once whispered, "And yet it moves" (E pur si muove), in defiance of those who forced him to recant his scientific truths. Though no one may have been there to hear him then, what he whispered in isolation has today become a fundamental truth of our world.
*Source: "The Faber Book of Science" edited by John Carey
"Galileo's original telescopes preserved at the Museo Galileo in Florence. Though simple in design, these tools revolutionized our understanding of the universe."
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