Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564, the same year William Shakespeare was born and the year that Michelangelo died. Galileo was home schooled by his father, a nobleman well known for his musical studies. At the age of 11, Galileo was sent to the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Maria di Vallombrosa where he, like other children of the nobility, studied Latin, Greek, religion, and music. It was when he entered the University of Pisa in 1581 that Galileo began to question Aristotle's teachings, particularly his theory of falling objects. Aristotle proposed that objects of differing weights fall at different rates of speed. Galileo noticed, while on a walk, that hailstones appeared to hit the ground at the same time regardless of their size. His famous experiment dropping different size balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa resulted in new ideas about physics and the idea that "laws" of science could, and should, be questioned. The image of Galileo standing atop the Leaning Tower and dropping objects is one that is common to many textbooks and science resource books because it symbolizes a turning point in science as a vehicle of inquiry.
Galileo Galilei suggested in 1638 and carried out experiments in 1667 to try measure the speed of light.Two people had to stand at least a mile apart. They both had covered lanterns. When one person uncovered his lantern, the other person had to uncover his lantern when he saw this. A third person measured the time between when the first and second lanterns where uncovered.Repeated experiments failed to accurately measure any time interval between when the first and second lanterns were uncovered. They could only say that light travel at least ten times faster than sound.
