Galileo Challenges Aristotle
1630 AD
1630 1630
10.25E44.40N
SCI

PISA, ITALY
	When Galileo Galilei wrote a book in 1630 maintaining that the earth  revolved around the sun -- not the other way around -- he not only challenged Ptolemy and Aristotle, but also the view of the Catholic Church, which had adopted their opinion as its own.
	Galileo's explorations with his telescope led him to the same conclusion as the Polish astronomer Copernicus, who said the sun is the center of the solar system.
	But Galileo didn't only challenge Aristotle on the position of the Earth in the heavens; he also challenged Aristotle's belief that objects of different weights would fall at different speeds.
	According to one story, Galileo dropped two objects of different weight from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to show they would both hit the ground at the same time.
	When Galileo first declared his views, he was dismissed from the University of Pisa in 1591 for his attacks on Aristotle, and was forced by the church to recant his sun-centered view of the solar system.
	But eventually both scientists and the church came to see that Galileo was correct, and today his discoveries are central to our understanding of the universe.
