<P> Galileo Galilei has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science". His original contributions to the science of motion were made through an innovative combination of experiment and mathematics . </P> <P> Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical . In The Assayer he wrote "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe...It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures; ..." His mathematical analyses are a further development of a tradition employed by late scholastic natural philosophers, which Galileo learned when he studied philosophy . He ignored Aristotelianism . In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought . He was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation . In order to perform his experiments, Galileo had to set up standards of length and time, so that measurements made on different days and in different laboratories could be compared in a reproducible fashion . This provided a reliable foundation on which to confirm mathematical laws using inductive reasoning . </P> <P> Galileo showed an appreciation for the relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics . He understood the parabola, both in terms of conic sections and in terms of the ordinate (y) varying as the square of the abscissa (x). Galilei further asserted that the parabola was the theoretically ideal trajectory of a uniformly accelerated projectile in the absence of friction and other disturbances . He conceded that there are limits to the validity of this theory, noting on theoretical grounds that a projectile trajectory of a size comparable to that of the Earth could not possibly be a parabola, but he nevertheless maintained that for distances up to the range of the artillery of his day, the deviation of a projectile's trajectory from a parabola would be only very slight . </P> <P> Scientific knowledge, according to the Aristotelians, was concerned with establishing true and necessary causes of things . To the extent that medieval natural philosophers used mathematical problems, they limited social studies to theoretical analyses of local speed and other aspects of life . The actual measurement of a physical quantity, and the comparison of that measurement to a value computed on the basis of theory, was largely limited to the mathematical disciplines of astronomy and optics in Europe . </P>

Discuss at least two factors that led to the scientific revolution