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Recommended Reading
As I am from Italian extraction I often refer to some of the great Italian philosophers and scientists. Many spring to mind. Leonardo Da Vinci for example. Not only a great artist, philosopher, engineer but also a true scientific thinker. His contributions to science include his intricate diagrams of human dissections and of course the inventions of the submarine, parachute and helicopter to name but a few.
Then there is Archimedes from Syracuse in Sicily, from where my parents originate. Everyone knows about his Eureka moment where after realising how to prove the authenticity of gold ran through the streets naked shouting Eureka ("I have it" in Greek). Great contributions to our understanding of electricity came from the work of Galvani who was able to make frogs' legs twitch, and Volta who made the first electric battery. More recently we have Marconi and his dogged work in experimenting with radio communication and realising its potential uses. Important contributions to understanding the nature of matter and the construction of the first nuclear reactor in a squash court was made by Enrico Fermi in the first half of the last century.
Perhaps most famous of all was Galileo Galilei. In my view he was the first true scientist. He realised that science had to be tested and measured. For example, his ideas about the pendulum were born from his ability to measure the period of oscillation of a church chandelier by using his pulse as a clock! He also did numerous experiments on motion and gravity with apparatus that he designed and made. Because of this, Newton was able to continue from where Galileo left off by adding more mathematical rigour to his findings. And let us not forget how Galileo suffered for the truth when, after having gazed through his telescope at the heavens, he dared suggest that the universe was not after all, geocentric, as suggested by the religious scholars of the time. He spent a considerable part of his later life imprisoned and silenced lest his heretical ideas should spread.
For me, Galileo is my hero. He realised that the truth should be backed up with observation and experiment. The fact that he and I share a similar heritage makes it all the more poignant for me and I like to think that this philosophy has influenced my teaching method.
