Chapter 10 – Revolution & Enlightenment

1. Chapter 10 – Revolution & Enlightenment Section 1- The Scientific Revolution

2. Background to the Revolution • Medieval scientists, know as “natural philosophers,” did not make observations of the world and nature so much as rely on ancient authorities, such as Aristotle, for their scientific knowledge. • Changes in the 1400s & 1500s caused society to adapt to new views and methods.

3. Aristotle

4. Background to the Revolution • Renaissance humanists studied the works of Ptolemy, Archimedes, Plato, among others. • They learned that some ancient thinkers disagreed with Aristotle.

5. Ptolemy

6. Problems leading to the Revolution • Calculating how much a ship could hold. • Observing space. • Printing copies • No advancements in math.

7. Mathematics • The study of math in the Renaissance contributed to the achievements in the 16th and 17th centuries. • Great scientists believed that the secrets of nature were written in the language of mathematics. • The following intellectuals developed new theories that became the foundation of the Scientific Revolution.

8. Copernicus

9. Kepler

10. Galileo

11. Newton

12. Ptolemy • He was antiquity’s greatest astronomer. • Medieval philosopher’s constructed a geocentric model of the universe known as the Ptolemaic system. • It was a series of concentric spheres with a motionless Earth in the middle.

13. Ptolemiac System (geocentric)

14. Ptolemy • Believed that planets are in different, crystal-like spheres. • They rotate, which accounts for movements of other heavenly bodies. • Beyond the tenth sphere is Heaven, where God and all the saved souls reside.

15. Nicholas Copernicus • Polishman who published, On the Reolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, in 1543. • Believed his heliocentric system was more accurate than the Ptolemiac System. • Argued that all planets revolved around the sun, the moon revolved around the Earth, and the Earth rotated on its axis.

16. Copernicun System (heliocentric)

17. Johannes Kepler • Helped destroy the Ptolemiac System. • Confirmed the sun was the center of the universe. • Tracked the elliptical orbits of planets. (Kepler’s First Law) • Ptolemy insisted the orbits were circular.

18. Kepler’s 1st Law of Planetary Motion

19. Galileo Galilei • Italian which answered one of the two remaining questions. • What are planets made of? • 1st to make regular observations with a telescope. • Saw mountains on the Moon and the 4 moons orbiting Jupiter. • Ptolemy said planets were orbs of light, Galileo said they were material.

20. Galileo vs the Catholic Church • Church ordered him to abandon the new system because it contradicted that of the Church. • In the new system, heavens were not spiritual but material, and God was no longer in a specific place. • Most astronomers believed the new concept anyway.

21. Isaac Newton • Englishman responded to the 2nd question. • What explains motion in the universe? • Published his views in Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, also known as the Principia.

22. Isaac Newton • Defined the 3 laws of motion • Centered around the Universal Law of Gravitation: every object in the universe is attracted to every other object by a force called gravity. • This explained why planets did not go off in a straight line. • Universe was now sees as a huge, regulated, uniform machine.

24. Breakthroughs in Medicine & Chemistry • Late Middle Ages, medicine was dominated by the teachings of Galen. • His views were often wrong because he used animals, not people, for dissection.

25. Andreas Vesalius • Published On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543) • Dissected humans at the University of Padua. • Presented an accurate view of individual organs and the general structure of the body. • However, he thought humans had 2 kinds of blood.

26. Andreas Vesalius

27. William Harvey • Published On the Motion of the Heart and Blood (1628) • Showed the heart, not the liver as Galen thought, was the beginning point of circulation. • Also showed that blood makes a complete circuit through the body.

28. Robert Boyle & Antoine Lavoisier • Chemist who formulated Boyle’s Law about gases. • The volume of a gas varies with pressure exerted on it. • Antoine Lavoisier, the founder of modern chemistry, invented a system of naming the chemicals.

29. Boyle & Lavosier

30. Women & the Origins of Modern Science • The most prominent woman in science was Margaret Cavendish. • She criticized the belief that humans, through science, were the masters of nature in her work Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy. • Maria Winkelmann was the most famous astronomer. • She assisted her husband and helped discover a comet.

31. Descartes and Reason • French philosopher Rene Descartes reflected the Western view of humankind. • Wrote Discourse on Method (1637) and asserts that he can rationally be sure of only one thing – his own existence. • He would only accept those things that his reason said were true. • “I think, therefore I am” • Separated mind and matter • Father of modern rationalism

32. The Scientific Method • Philospher Francis Bacon was most responsible for the Scientific Method. • Emphasized arriving at conclusions about nature using inductive reasoning, or making generalizations from particular observations and experiments organized to test hypotheses.

33. Francis Bacon • Believed science was to give human kind new discoveries and to serve human purposes by conquering “nature in action.”

34. End of Section 1 Next: The Enlightenment