It appears that
sitting one day in the Cathedral of Pisa, Galileo's attention became
concentrated on the swinging of a chandelier which hung from the
ceiling. It struck him as a significant point, that whether the arc
through which the pendulum oscillated was a long one or a short one,
the time occupied in each vibration was sensibly the same. This
suggested to the thoughtful observer that a pendulum would afford the
means by which a time-keeper might be controlled, and accordingly
Galileo constructed for the first time a clock on this principle. The
immediate object sought in this apparatus was to provide a means of
aiding physicians in counting the pulses of their patients.
The talents of Galileo having at length extorted due recognition from
the authorities, he was appointed, at the age of twenty-five,
Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pisa. Then came the
time when he felt himself strong enough to throw down the gauntlet to
the adherents of the old philosophy. As a necessary part of his
doctrine on the movement of bodies Aristotle had asserted that the
time occupied by a stone in falling depends upon its weight, so that
the heavier the stone the less time would it require to fall from a
certain height to the earth.
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