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The Scientific Revolution
Chapter 8, Lesson 1
Origins of Scientific Thought
● “Natural Philosophers”
o Middle Ages scientists
o Relied on ancient authorities like Aristotle for scientific knowledge
o Old views abandoned when changes occur during 1400s and 1500s
● Renaissance Humanists
o Learned Greek and Latin
o Discovered the works of Plato and Archimedes
o Realized that not all ancient thinkers agreed with Aristotle and other
accepted authorities of the Middle Ages
Lead Up to the Revolution
● Technical problems needed observation and accurate measurement to be
solved
● Invention of telescope and microscope
o Encouraged direct observation
o Led to fresh scientific discoveries
● Printing Press
o New ideas spread quickly and easily
Geocentric vs. Heliocentric
● Ptolemaic System (Geocentric)
o Model of the universe that was geocentric (Earth placed at the center
of the universe)
o Universe is a series of spheres, one inside another
o Earth is fixed in the center
o “Heavenly bodies” revolve around the Earth
o The last sphere moves itself and makes the other spheres move
o Past the last sphere is Heaven and God
Geocentric Model
Geocentric vs. Heliocentric
● Copernican View (heliocentric)
o Created by Nicolaus Copernicus (astronomer and mathematician)
o Believed in an heliocentric universe (the sun is at the center of the
universe)
o Planets revolve around the sun, moon revolves around the Earth
● Johannes Kepler
o Observations confirmed that the sun was at the center of the universe
o Kepler’s First Law: orbits of the planets around the sun are not
circular (like Ptolemy said), but elliptical (egg shaped) with the sun
close to the end of the ellipse
Heliocentric Model
Galileo Galilei
● First European to use a telescope to study the universe and discovers:
o Mountains on the Earth’s moon
o Four moons revolving around Jupiter
o Sunspots
● Believed in Copernicus and a heliocentric universe
● Came under suspicion of the Catholic Church after publishing The Starry
Message and making more Europeans aware of the heliocentric universe
o Copernican ideas threatened the Church’s beliefs about the universe
(Earth and humans at the center)
● By 1630s and 1640s, most astronomers accept a heliocentric universe
Isaac Newton
● Professor of mathematics at Cambridge University
● Wrote Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (known as
Principia)
o Defined the three laws of motion that control the planets and objects
on Earth
● Universal Law of Gravitation
o Explains the elliptical orbits of the planets and all motion in the
universe, which is controlled by gravity
o Every object in the universe is attracted to every other object by
gravity
● Concept will dominate science until Albert Einstein (early 1900s)
Medicine and Chemistry
● Galen
o Late Middle Ages
o Used animal dissection to describe human anatomy
o Not accurate at all
● Andreas Vesalius
o Dissected human bodies at University of Padua
o Accurately described individual organs and structure of the human
body
Medicine and Chemistry
● William Harvey
o Showed that the heart was the beginning point for blood circulation
o Galen had said that the liver was the beginning point
o Proved that the same blood flows through veins and arteries, making
a complete trip throughout the body
● Blaise Pascal
o Pascal’s Law: if pressure is put on a liquid, it will be distributed
evenly over all of the fluid
o Led to tools like the syringe and hydraulic press
● Robert Boyle
o Boyle’s Law: volume of a gas changes with the pressure it is under
Contribution of Women
● Margaret Cavendish
o From an English aristocratic family
o Not formally educated in science, but wrote a number of books about
scientific matters
o Critical of the idea that humans were the masters of nature
o Published under her own name
o Contributions widely known today, but not taken seriously during her
time period because of her gender
Contribution of Women
● Maria Winkelmann
o German astronomer
o 1650-1710, women made up 14% of German astronomers
o Learned from a self-taught astronomer
o Married Gottfried Kirch, Prussia’s most famous astronomer, and
worked as his assistant
o Made original contributions to astronomy (discovered a comet)
o Applied to be an assistant astronomer at Berlin Academy
 Denied because she was a woman and had no formal degree
 Feared that hiring a woman would set a bad example
Rene Descartes
● French philosopher
● Decided to set aside everything that he knew and begin again
● One thing he knew to be without doubt: he existed
o “I think, therefore I am”
● Accepted only the things his reason said were true
● “The mind cannot be doubted but the body and material world can. The
two must be radically different”
o Separation of the mind and body
o Matter was something that was completely detached from the mind
and could be investigated independently by reason
Francis Bacon
● English philosopher
● Created the scientific method
o Procedure for collecting and analyzing evidence
o Based on inductive reasoning: start from the specific and move to the
general
● Believed that knowledge of the natural world could be achieved through
observation and experimentation
● Thought that human power could conquer and control nature
o Becomes an important concern of science and technology
Scientific Method