 It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he dedicated his time to one of his finest works , Two New Sciences . Here he summarised work he had done some forty years earlier , on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials , published in Holland to avoid the censor . This book has received high praise from Albert Einstein . As a result of this work , Galileo is often called the " father of modern physics " . He went completely blind in 1638 and was suffering from a painful hernia and insomnia , so he was permitted to travel to Florence for medical advice . 
