The Scientific Revolution

1. The Scientific Revolution

2. Overview • The Scientific Rev. began in the 16th century and accelerated for the next two. • Led to a rethinking of religious and moral issues. • Birth of the scientific method and a rational view of the universe.

3. Nicolaus Copernicus(1473-1543) • Previous theory = Ptolemaic System: Earth is the center of the universe. Everything else in crystalline spheres that make them move. • Caused variations in the calendar. Seafaring commerce needed a better model. • Copernicus thought the Sun at the center made more mathematical sense • Mathematical astronomy + empirical data + observation = the new model for scientific thought

6. Uncle was Bishop of Ermeland and appointed him canon • Friends pressured him to publish. “Rheticus,” his enthusiastic disciple did first. • On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres is finally published after he dies with a forged introduction that downplays the his certainty in his system. • Friends in the Catholic Church had actually encouraged him to publish and his work was read in Catholic universities. • Martin Luther and Calvin were highly critical. • Leads to our Gregorian Calendar

7. Tycho Brahe • Was given an island by Denmark’s King Frederick II. It became a whole astronomical community. • Thought the Sun went around the Earth but other planets went around the Sun • Left his records to Johannes Kepler

8. Johannes Kepler • Wanted to be a Lutheran minister but was too poor. Taught math instead. • Kepler concluded the Sun was at the center but planetary orbits were elliptical, not perfectly circular. • Believed magnetism, not spirits, moved the planets.

9. Galileo Galilei(1564-1642) • Taught math and created instruments for his shop. Invented the thermometer. • Designed his own telescope. In 1610 looked to the Heavens, saw their complexity and believed Copernicus. • Said the Bible and nature were 2 languages. In the Bible God spoke so man could understand.

10. Jesuits accused Galileo of heresy and he defends his self in Rome in 1616. • Published Dialogues of the Two Chief Systems of the World in 1632. • In 1633 Pope Urban VIII called an ill Galileo to Rome, threatened him with torture, banned Dialogue, forced him to recant and placed him under house arrest.

11. Francis Bacon(1561-1626) • Believed in Empiricism: the use of experiment and observation derived from sensory evidence to construct scientific theory. • Challenged the superiority of the ancients • Died from pneumonia after studying the effects of freezing meat.

12. Rene Descartes(1596-1650) • Mathematician who stressed deductive reasoning over Bacon’s inductive approach. • His Discourse on Method related all human thought to mathematics • Divide existence between things of the mind and “extension” (matter) • Considered the father of modern philosophy and analytical geometry

13. Isaac Newton(1642-1727) • Published Principia Mathematicain 1687. Mathematically described gravity and laid the basis for modern physics. • Proved the Sun to be the center of the solar system • Also believed in the importance of empirical data and observation alongside math. • Devoutly religious and used the observation of fixed laws to show the rationality of God

14. John Locke(1632-1704) • In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding he described the human mind as a blank slate. • Minds form through experience and can be molded through environment.