*Includes pictures of Galileo and important people, places, and events in his life. *Includes quotes from Galileo's letters and works. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. *Includes a Table of Contents. “What has philosophy got to do with measuring anything? It's the mathematicians you have to trust...” – Galileo It would be impossible to overstate the accomplishments and legacy of a man history has dubbed the “Father of Modern Science”. In his lifetime, Galileo straddled the epochs of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, and it was his work and technological advances that helped usher in a brand new understanding of the solar system and the scientific method. Stephen Hawking himself has asserted, “Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science." Of course, part of what made Galileo such a monumental figure was the fact that he was ahead of his time, and that he mostly refused to conform to the accepted dogmas of contemporary society. As he once put it, “Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it.”