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Galileo's experiments led him to conclude that once something is set in motion it will remain in motion unless something stops it. This contradicted earlier ideas that said only rest was a natural state.
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Galileo uses telescope for astronomical observations. Galileo didn't invent the telescope but he was among the first to use a telescope to examine the heavens. He carried out important observations of the Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars.
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The Dialogue, although superficially a balanced debate about the merits of the geocentric and heliocentric models of the solar system, was in fact a powerful argument for the ideas of Copernicus. Galileo was brought before the Inquisition and spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest.
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When Cambridge University was closed by the plague, Newton spent most of the next two years at his family farm. During this period he made fundamental discoveries in optics, discovered the law of universal gravitation, and invented differential and integral calculus.
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A careful investigation of the shower by Edouard Biot convinced most skeptics that meteorites really do fall from the sky.
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Einstein explained that the emission of electrons only by light at short wavelengths occurs because light consistes of bundles of energy called photons.
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Einstein explained that matter curves space, causing bodies to move in ways we attribute to gravity.
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Hubble found that the speed of recession of galaxies increases with distance. He explained that this is due to the expansion of the universe.
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A fleet of five space probes flew past Comet Halley at distances as small as 600 km. Images sent back by the spacecraft showed that the nucleus of Halley is very dark and larger than anticipated.
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Hubble Space telescope launched.