17TH CENTURY SCIENCE

A Revolution of Sorts

A Move to a More Modern MethodologyScience after 1550

Questioned older beliefs about the universe

New methods of inquiry led to discoveries in astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology

Creation of new institutions that supported scientific discovery and education

Theory and Practice

Advances in ways of explaining the universe

Advances in practical knowledge that directly translated into creation of scientific equipment

Artisan techniques used to create the new scientific machinery would later translate into machinery that will drive the industrial age

Timeline

1543- Copernicus and On the Heavenly Spheres

1576- Tycho Brahe sets up Uraniborg Observatory

1609-Johannes Kepler, Brahe understudy, publishes Astronomia Nova

1610-Galileo publishes Starry Messenger

1620 Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum

1632- Galileo publishes Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Trial of Galileo- 1633

■Galileo recants. Science, unlike religion, will not directly challenge church authority. However, science, unlike religion, is based on fact and is not as socially inflammatory as religion. The printing press desiminates information from both movements, so like religion, once the genie is out of the box the church cannot reel it back in.

Post Trial

1637- Renee Descartes publishes Discourse on Method

1660- Royal Society of London founded

1666- French Academy of Sciences founded

1687- Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematicas

Rise of the Academies

Royal Society in London and French Academy of Science in Paris established in the same generation as Galileo’s Trial

Shows the established acceptance and secular power of the scientific community. This community did not fear reprisals from the church.

Supported by monarchs. The National Observatory in England was funded by Charles I and will later become the Greenwich Mean.

Intellectual Origins: Old Knowledge

Neoplatonism-God’s perfection is visible to the world through observation

Did not and did not intend to undermine God

Observation, experiment, and invention all present during th middle ages

What Changed

Content of Knowledge which was primarily the heliocentric theory which displaced humans from the center of the universe

Established a method for inquiry for understanding the natural world that emphasized observation, hypothesis, and experiment

Science emerged as a distinctive branch of knowledge

Decisive Break from the Middle Ages

Renaissance humanism and the study of ancient texts

Collaboration between the artisan and the intellectual

Age of Exploration drove technology for navigation

Print technology and a culture of reading

Copernican Revolution

First systematic challenge to the Ptolemaic model

Not a physicist

Was not looking for a break from the church

Tycho Brahe

Tried to correct problems with traditional astronomy

Court astronomer to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II

Also an aristocrat

Johannes Kepler

Brahe Understudy

Believed that a math is God’s language

Recognized the inconsistencies in Copernican model

Galileo

Created the first powerful telescope

Discoveries were at odds with Aristotelian and Catholic teachings

Most famous scientist of his day

Medicis became his patron

Arrested, tried by the Inquisition, under life long house arrest

Renee Descartes

Father of analytical geometry

Deductive reasoning- one logical step to the next

Mechanical philosophy- to look at everything in nature as a machine

Francis Bacon

Inductive reasoning- amassing evidence and drawing conclusions

Develop practical applications from conclusion

Solomon’s House is a utopian work where everyone collaborates

William Harvey

English Physician

Circulatory system

vivisection

Boyle

Chemistry

Boyle’s Law: showing that at a constant temperature the volume of a gas decreases in proportion to thep ressure placed on it

Hooke

Compound Microscope

Revealed detailed structure of plants

Seen as God’s creation and wisdom

The Role of the State

17th century state building helped secure the rise of science

The state used scientific societies as a way to re-establish order in a post-civil war world

Charles II, restored, funded the Royal Society in London.

French Academy of Science funded by Bourbon Absolutism

Women

Societies did not ban women

Pouillan asked in 1673 why women should be banned from intellectual pursuits as they had the same brain and nervous system as men

Italy allowed women to teach at institutions

Other countries allowed women to educate themselves but independently.

Women were allowed to take part in the discussion

Margaret Cavendish was a natural philosopher from England who included in her work circle Hobbes and Descartes.

Entymologist Maria Sbylla Merian carved out a professional space by exploiting the guild system which had long admitted women. Merian’s father was an engraver and so was she. She made engravings of her bugs.

Isaac Newton

Culmination of the Scientific Revolution

All bodies, on Earth and in heaven, operate by the same laws

Used prisms to show the break down of white light- roy g biv

Gravitation is a universal force and can be described by mathematics

The Take Away

Science was cool

Science represented all that was modern

Collaborative nature allowed for science clubs and women

Absolute Monarchs became patrons

Science did not subvert religion

Mathematics assumed a central role in Science

New disciplined thinking allowed for the deconstruction of the natural world