The evening of January 8, 1610, was a clear and starry one in Padua, Italy, where Galileo Galilei taught mathematics at the leading university of that day. As Galileo studied the order and beauty he found through the telescope, he became one of the first to hypothesize that God holds his creation together in part through mathematical 'laws' that keep the universe ticking like a well-designed clock. God's power and glory were clearly revealed in this precision instrument called the universe.