Professional Life

Galileo originally was supposed to be a doctor because that is what his father wanted him to do, but Galileo had other ideas of what he wanted to be.  Galileo’s professional life started out with him being a mathematician.  He taught mathematics privately for a long time because he found mathematics to be very interesting.  Later Galileo became more of a scientist, but a lot of science includes equations, which are used in mathematics.  He later studied gravity and even brought his ideas and research on the topic to discussions in Rome.  Galileo then created one of his most well know theories, the Theory of Motion, even though he never did publish this theory.    Right after this his father then died and since Galileo was the eldest son he had to provide for his family.  He did this by becoming the main mathematician at the University of Padua; this is really the place where he first started studying astronomy because he had to teach geometry with astronomy.  Galileo made many new theories, some which contradicted other popular scientists’ theories, such as the New Star theory.  In 1609 he started to make his own telescopes which where much better than the Dutch ones used. With these new telescopes he made he looked at and studied things like the Sun’s sunspots, and the craters on the moon.  This new telescope made Galileo to be able to magnify things by 9 to 10 times the size.  Eventually from looking at and studying the sunspots on the sun Galileo became blind.  He died in 1642.