Galileo Galilei, one of the first modern scientists, was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564. About twenty years later he attended the University of Pisa. At first he studied philosophy, but later he studied mathematics and astronomy. He was interested in the way the earth and other planets move around the sun. He made the telescope, which made far-away things look larger and easier to examine. He also started the new way of working in science. Before Galieo, scientists did not do experiments. They just guessed about how something happened. Galileo was different. He did not just make guesses. He did experiments and watched to see what happened.
Galileo was famous for his study of how things fall. He was the first person to do experiments about this problem. Before, people thought that heavy things always fell faster than light things. He found out that this was not true. He took a heavy ball and a light ball and he dropped them both from a high place. They fell at the same speed. This meant that weight is not important. This is the law of falling bodies. It is an important law for understanding our world.