Q 01/05

In which city was Galileo born in 1564?

A) Pisa

B) Florence

C) Padua

D) Venice

Answer · why

A) Pisa

The city was then part of the Duchy of Florence; his family moved to Florence itself when he was about eight.

Q 02/05

Galileo's father Vincenzo was a leading figure in which field?

A) Medicine

B) Banking

C) Music

D) Painting

Answer · why

C) Music

A lutenist and music theorist of the Florentine Camerata, he ran string-tension experiments that may be the oldest known non-linear law in physics; Ga...

Q 03/05

At his father's urging, Galileo enrolled at the University of Pisa in 1580 to study what?

A) Law

B) Medicine

C) Theology

D) Mathematics

Answer · why

B) Medicine

He had seriously considered the priesthood; a physician's income was the deciding argument, and he was deliberately kept away from mathematics.

Q 04/05

Watching a swinging chandelier in 1581, Galileo timed its swings against what?

A) A water clock

B) A burning candle

C) A sandglass

D) His own heartbeat

Answer · why

D) His own heartbeat

He concluded the swings took the same time whatever their size, an idea Huygens turned into an accurate clock a century later.

Q 05/05

What chance event persuaded the young Galileo to abandon medicine for natural philosophy?

A) Reading Copernicus

B) Meeting Kepler

C) Watching an eclipse

D) Attending a geometry lecture

Answer · why

D) Attending a geometry lecture

He then had to talk his reluctant father into letting him change course.