Galileo and the Application of Mathematics to Physics 1

Abstract

TWO hundred and ninety-eight years ago to-day (November 5, 1581) Galileo Galilei, then a boy between seventeen and eighteen, matriculated as a medical student in the University of Pisa. At that time Medicine was perhaps the least satisfactory of scientific studies, and though his family had influential professional connections, the empirical maxims and the semi-metaphysical reasons by which they were supported never caught the young man's fancy or satisfied, his intellect. We first hear of him listening outside.the door in which Ricci, the Court mathematician of Florence, who happened to be spending some time at Pisa with the Grand Duke, taught the pages a little Euclid. For a couple of months Galileo neglected his medicine, and greedily absorbed his Euclid through the key-hole till, he found some chance opportunity of introducing himself to the Professof, who was delighted with his new pupil. Ricci presented him with a Volume of Archimedes, and the great mathematician and physicist of Syracuse became the spiritual father of the young Italian student. In spite of the straitened circumstances of his family, and the chances of fortune that awaited him in a decorous prosecution of his regular medical studies, he deserted them, and attached himself to Ricci.