Brief biographies of Copernicus and Galilei,

1. CONFERENCE
“Knowing our history we participate with responsibility in the
transformation of our environment”
Page 1 of 1
AREA: Science GRADE: Fourth A-B-C-D
TOPIC: BIOGRAPHIES OF COPERNICUS AND GALILEE
TEACHER: Maria del Pilar Bonilla Potes
INTRODUCTION: When we study earth and its movements we realize how much we owe other scientists that have given us a
head start in science. Here we will see a couple of these cases.
Biography of NICOLAS COPERNICO centuries (15th - 16th) "the Earth is right in the Centre of the
sky", claimed the Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and its design helped to put shackles to man's mind
for more than a thousand years. Then, Nicolaus Copernicus, Roman Catholic scholar and a
modest administrator sparked a revolution vacated to the Earth, and the man in the center of the
universe. Doctor, lawyer, Economist, mathematician and astronomer born in 1473, the current,
while serving as Canon at the Cathedral of Frauenburgo was quietly studying the movements of
the planets and stars and compiling a gigantic work which ran their radical views, which were
spreading gradually throughout Europe. Although for religious and political reasons, the reluctant
revolutionary delayed publication until the year of his death, 1543. It was then when the world read
words that transformed the universe: "Like sitting at a real throne, the Sun governed planets that
revolve around him family" are said that Martin Lucero warned: "the fool wants to head back the
science of Astronomy". That was precisely what did Copernicus and to do so, released this
science.
GALILEO GALILEI centuries XVII - XIX that were offered in 1609 to Galileo Galilei, the first man
saw the sky through a telescope, were wonderful views. With great joy, astronomer, and physicist
(1564-1642), discovered mountains on the Moon, the phases of Venus, the four "estrellitas"
accompanying Jupiter. Scrutinizing the milky way, saw many never before seen stars noting stains
across the solar disk, he deduced that the sun rotates also. These discoveries, Galileo became a
convinced Copernican and launched a campaign for the Church to accept the theory of one.
Trying to convince skeptical prelates (der), explains lunar mountains and the moons of Jupiter.
The Church was inflexible and Galileo became rude and nasty. Finally, the Inquisition forced him
to accept his "mistakes", but did not stop the inquisitivamente of a wide range of mechanics, who
explored the movements of the pendulum until the fall of bodies. The Church rehabilitated it in
1992.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Galileo_Galilei.htm