Transcript Scientific Revolution

Scientific Revolution
© 2008, TESCCC
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
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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
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