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Scientific Revolution

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Why did it start?

• It started with the Renaissance! – A new secular, critical thinking man began to

look at the world around him.– New Greek resources were available that

expanded on the Latin resources that learning was based

– The weakening of the Church’s intellectual control of thinking.

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“The Star Gazers”

Men who studied the heavens

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Ptolemy

• 2nd Century Roman Astronomer

• Geocentric world view (Earth Centered) – Series of concentric spheres surrounding a

motionless earth

• Christianity shaped its view of heaven to correspond to Ptolemy’s world view– Heaven above the outer sphere and Hell in

the interior of earth.

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Nicholas Copernicus

• Polish astronomer

• 1543

• On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

• Concluded that the sun is the center of our solar system, or Heliocentric world

• The earth is merely one of several planets revolving about the sun.

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Johannes Kepler

• German Astronomer & Mathematician

• Kepler used Math to prove and extend the ideas of Copernicus;

• Determined that the planets follow an elliptical, not a circular, orbit in revolving about the sun.

• Helped explain the paths followed by human-made satellites today.

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Galileo Galilei

• Italian Astronomer and Physicist• First to use a telescope to study the heavens;

discovered the moons of Jupiter and mountains on the moon;– Shows that the universe was made of the same

material

• Demonstrated the law of falling bodies and greatly improved the telescope

• Did the most to bring the heliocentric conception of the universe to the world

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Galileo and the Church

• The Church took a stand against the Copernican idea and brought Galileo to Rome for a Trial. 1610

• Faced with the choice of recanting his beliefs or execution, Galileo chose to recant and abandoned his studies of the heavens.

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The Thinkers

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Isaac Newton– English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist– Principles of Natural Philosophy or Principia 1642– Invented calculus– Discovered laws of light and color– Formulated the laws of motion

• Objects are in a state of rest or motion in a straight line;• Rate of change is proportional to the forces acting on it;• For every action is a opposite and equal reaction;

– Law of gravitation, which explains why the heavens are in motion

– World as a machine view of natural laws!

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Francis Bacon

• Lawyer from England

• Concept of inductive, experimental thinking

• He popularized the new scientific method of observation and experimentation.

• English Royal Society: Meetings of scientist who share ideas.

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Rene Descartes• French Scientist, Mathematician, and

philosopher• Discourse on Method 1637• Cartesian Dualism: Separation of Mind and

Body - father of Rationalism• Discovered laws of optics and is considered

the founder of analytic geometry.• Doubt everything; all must be proven

– “I think, therefore, I am.”

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Studying the Body and the World

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Vesalius

Flemish Physician

• On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543)

• Undertook dissections of the human body as a professor of surgery

• Founded the science of anatomy

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William Harvey

• English Physician, demonstrated that blood circulates through the body

• On the Motion of the Heart and Blood (1628)

• Disproved the Greek Galen’s theories that had been held for 1500 years.

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Leeuwenhoek

• Dutch naturalist

• Perfected the microscope and the study of micro-organisms.

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What was the Impact of the Scientific Revolution on:

• Philosophy: Enlightenment and ideas on government

• Religion: the Church, rather than embracing the ideas created a conflict between faith and science;

• World: challenged traditional beliefs about the organization of society, application of science to solve problems in society