The great Italian astronomer and mathematician, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). At the University of Padua, he improved the refracting telescope and was the first to use it in astronomy; he was also the first to see sunspots, the four main satellites of Jupiter, mountains and craters on the moon, and the appearance of Venus going through phases.

Before long, he came to the conclusion that the Copernican Sun-centered theory of the universe had been right, and the Aristotelian Earth-centered theory wrong. Too bad for Galileo. The authorities were scandalized, and Galileo was forced to recant by the Inquisition. He was under house arrest in his last years, and eventually went totally blind.

Naturally rebellious and without benefit of modern career guidance counseling, Galileo's college education got off on the wrong foot. His father, a musician, wanted his son to do something that would earn more money, and made him study medicine. Galileo was not a happy freshman undergraduate. Biographer James Reston Jr. writes:

"Ironically, medicine came under the heading of the arts, and this was apt since the profession still contained a large element of faith and hocus-pocus. During the first year, theory was stressed. Galileo got a heavy does of Aristotle's natural philosophy, Galen's physiology, and Avicenna's theory of recovery, along with further grounding in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew... Soon enough, Galileo's likes and dislikes were evident. The tedious emphasis on outdated classical authors annoyed him, and in certain disquisitions he could see that the Greeks were not only irrelevant but wrong...

"His regular professors did not appreciate his outspokenness but regarded it as disrespect. They tagged the medical student with the unflattering label of 'the wrangler," as if he delighted in arguing about anything simply for the fun of it and in the secret hope of making the distinguished professors look ridiculous... His absence from core lectures became a serious problem. In due course the university informed his family that their son was in danger of flunking out, and his father could see his hopes for his son vanishing."

But after some discussions, a decision was made to allow the delinquent young man to switch majors. He went into mathematics, and the rest is (as the saying goes) history.

This summary of Galileo Galilei appeared in the February 11, 1999 issue of Edupage. Edupage is written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas.