Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa in 1564, the son of a musician. While studying medicine at the University of Pisa he fell in love with mathematics, and he later taught mathematics at Pisa and Padua, studying falling bodies and the pendulum and laying the foundations of modern mechanics. In 1609, hearing that the Dutch had invented a telescope, he built one himself, turned it on the night sky, and saw mountains on the moon, the moons of Jupiter and countless stars in the Milky Way. He openly championed the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, and in 1633 the Roman Inquisition found him 'vehemently suspect of heresy'; forced to abjure, he lived under house arrest at his villa outside Florence until his death. Einstein called him the father of modern science.