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Galileo

(Encyclopedia)Galileo (Galileo Galilei)gll´; gäll´ gäll´ [key], 1564–1642, great Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist. By his persistent investigation of natural laws he lai...

Ferraris, Galileo

(Encyclopedia)Ferraris, Galileo gäll´ fr-rä´rs [key], 1847–97, Italian physicist and electrical engineer. He is noted for his work on alternating current and for his discovery (1885) of the rotary m...

Benedetti, Giovanni Battista

(Encyclopedia)Benedetti, Giovanni Battista jvän´n bät-ts´tä bndt´t [key], 1530–90, Italian mathematician and physicist. An important forerunner of Galileo, Benedetti had diverse interests, inc...

Torricelli, Evangelista

(Encyclopedia)Torricelli, Evangelista vänjl´stä tr-rchl´l [key], 1608–47, Italian physicist and mathematician. He was Galileo's secretary (1641–42) and his successor as professor of philosophy...

Medici, Ferdinand II de'

(Encyclopedia)Medici, Ferdinand II de', 1610–70, grand duke of Tuscany (1620–70); son and successor of Cosimo II de' Medici. A pupil of Galileo, he founded (1657) the Accademia del Cimento, the first European a...

Galilei, Vincenzo

(Encyclopedia)Galilei, Vincenzo vnchn´ts gäll´ [key], d. 1591, Italian lutenist, singer, writer, and composer; father of Galileo. As a member of the Florentine camerata (see opera), he was one of the...

Stevin, Simon

(Encyclopedia)Stevin, Simon s´môn stvn´ [key], 1548–1620, Dutch engineer and mathematician. His experiments in hydrostatics showed that the pressure exerted by a liquid is dependent only on its vertical ...

Europa

(Encyclopedia)Europayoor´p, in astronomy, one of the 39 known moons, or natural satellites, of Jupiter. Magnetic-field data collected by the space probe Galileo in 2002 strongly indicated a liquid-water ocea...

Medici, Cosimo II de'

(Encyclopedia)Medici, Cosimo II de', 1590–1621, grand duke of Tuscany (1609–21); son and successor of Ferdinand I de' Medici. Although Cosimo played a role in the War of the Mantuan Succession, he generally avo...

Piloty, Karl von

(Encyclopedia)Piloty, Karl von kärl fn pl´t [key], 1826–86, German historical painter; son of Ferdinand Piloty (1786–1844), a noted German lithographer. Karl first won recognition for his genre painti...

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