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I. Introduction to the Scientific Revolution
A.
The New Science
1.
2.
3.
B.
A body of knowledge
A method of inquiry
A community of practitioners and institutions
The Scientific Revolution
1.
2.
3.
Heliocentricity
A new mathematical physics
New Method of inquiry
II. The Intellectual Origins of the
Scientific Revolution
A.
Medieval antecedents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Artists and their observations of the natural world
The magnetic compass
The printing press
Gunpowder
A fascination with light (optics and lens grinding)
A natural world created by God
a.
Neoplatonism
II. The Intellectual Origins of the
Scientific Revolution (cont’d)
B.
The Renaissance
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Humanists placed lower value on science
a.
More interested in classical antiquity and the authority of
the ancients
Arabic translations of Greek classics
Rediscovery of Ptolemy and Archimedes
Developing collaboration between artisans and intellectuals
Building machines for practical use
The laws of perspective and optics
Alchemy and astrology
Voyages of discovery
a.
Travelers accounts of foreign lands
b.
Attacking the authority of the ancients
III. The Copernican Revolution
A. Medieval science
1.
Authority of the ancients: Aristotle and Ptolemy
a. Heavenly bodies orbit in a hierarchy of spheres
b. Heavens and earth composed of different matter
c. The “quintessence” (the ether)
d. Earth, air, fire and water
e. The “prime mover”
B. Late Middle Age developments
1.
2.
3.
Ptolemaic system did not conform to observations
Retrograde motion
Roman calendar out of alignment with movement of heavenly
bodies
a. The “problem” of Easter and other holy days
III. The Copernican Revolution (cont’d)
C.
Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Renaissance man
Ptolemaic system had become too messy
Copernican system
a.
The earth moved and was not the center of the planetary
system
b.
The earth rotated on its axis and orbited the sun
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies (1543)
IV. Tycho’s Observations and Kepler’s
Laws
A.
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Born into the Danish nobility
A champion of observation
Observed the appearance of a new star (nova) in 1572
Built his own observatory
Tycho not a Copernican
a.
Planets orbited the sun, the whole of which orbited a
stationary earth
IV. Tycho’s Observations and Kepler’s
Laws (cont’d)
B.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Served as Tycho’s assistant
Everything had been created according to mathematical laws
a.
Mathematics as the language of God
b.
Mathematical perfection and musical harmonies
Three laws of planetary motion
a.
Planets travel in elliptical orbits
b.
Speed of the planets varied with their distance from the sun
c.
Magnetic forces kept the planets in orbital motion
New Astronomy or Celestial Physics (1609)
V. New Heavens, New Earth, and Worldly
Politics: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
A.
Galileo the man
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
B.
A witty and persuasive writer (wrote in Latin and Italian)
A popularizer of the non-Aristotelian approach to science
Impatient with those who opposed him
A new relationship between religion and science
Controversy and the collision course with the Church
The telescope
1.
2.
3.
Built his own telescope in 1610
Observed the features of the moon, the moons of Jupiter and
sun spots
A challenge to heavenly perfection
4.
The Starry Messenger (1610)
V. New Heavens, New Earth, and Worldly
Politics: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
(cont’d)
D.
Conflict with the Church
1.
2.
3.
A Dominican monk denounced Galileo’s ideas as a dangerous
deviation
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina de Medici (1615)
a. One can be a sincere Copernican and a Catholic
b. Understanding the physical world is best left to the natural
philosopher
1616: the Inquisition declares heretical the proposition that the
earth moves
a. Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus is placed on the Index of
Forbidden Books
V. New Heavens, New Earth, and Worldly
Politics: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
(cont’d)
Conflict with the Church (cont’d)
D.
4.
E.
A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
a.
Inquisition banned the book
b.
Galileo ordered to stand trial in 1633
c.
Recanted his beliefs and placed under house arrest for life
The legacy
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The theory of inertia
Law of falling bodies
Two New Sciences (1638)
Combined discovery, observation, experiment and mathematics
Suggested universal laws of motion
The new science moves out of Italy to Northwest Europe
VI. Methods for a New Philosophy: Bacon
and Descartes
A.
B.
The need for a scientific method
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
New confidence in the potential of human thought
Lord Chancellor to James I
Separation of scientific investigation from philosophical
argument
The inductive method
a.
Combining evidence from observations to draw general
conclusions
b.
Cooperation between researchers
c.
“Useful” knowledge
Great Instauration (1620)
The New Atlantis (1626)
a.
Solomon’s House
VI. Methods for a New Philosophy: Bacon
and Descartes (cont’d)
C.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
1.
2.
3.
An intellectually restless man
The Discourse on Method (1637)
a.
Began as an essay on optics, geometry and meteorology
b.
Systematic doubt of everything
c.
Cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”)
d.
The thinking person exists, reasons exists, God exists
The deductive method
a.
A “fresh start for knowledge”
b.
Proceed logically from one certainty to another
c.
Mathematical thought an expression of the highest
standards of reason
VII. The Power of Method and the Force
of Curiosity: Seventeenth Century
Experimenters (cont’d)
B.
The Baconians
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Began with practical research
Sought empirical laws based on evidence
William Harvey (1578-1657)
a.
The circulation of blood
b.
Dissected live animals
Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
a.
Boyle’s law
Robert Hooke (1635-1703)
a.
Introduced the microscope
b.
The cellular structure of plants
VII. The Power of Method and the Force
of Curiosity: Seventeenth Century
Experimenters (cont’d)
C.
D.
God as clockmaker
Science, society, and the state
1.
The Royal Society (charter granted 1662)
a.
Committed to experiment and collaborative work
b.
Serving political and intellectual purpose
c.
Philosophical Transactions
i.
Reached out to professional scholars across Europe
VII. The Power of Method and the Force
of Curiosity: Seventeenth Century
Experimenters (cont’d)
Science, society, and the state (cont’d)
D.
2.
3.
4.
French Academy of Sciences (1666)
A state-sponsored framework for scientific endeavor
Easing the exchange of information and theories
VIII. “And All Was Light”: Isaac Newton,
1643-1727
A.
B.
The culmination of the Scientific Revolution
Newton the man
1.
2.
3.
C.
Born to a family of small landowners
Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (stayed 35 years)
A reclusive, secretive, and obsessive man
Newton the scientist
1.
2.
3.
Optics
a.
Used prisms to demonstrate that light was composed of
different-colored rays
Mathematics
a.
Integral and differential calculus
Gravity
a.
The falling apple
VIII. “And All Was Light”: Isaac Newton,
1643-1727 (cont’d)
Newton the scientist (cont’d)
C.
4.
5.
6.
Reflective telescope
Elected to the Royal Society (1672)
Principia Mathematica ( Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy)
a.
Published in 1687 (prompted by Edmund Halley)
b.
A long and difficult work
c.
Gravitation was a universal force that could be expressed
mathematically
d.
Built upon the work of Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Descartes and
Hooke
e.
A single, descriptive account of mass and motion
f.
The laws of gravitation
VIII. “And All Was Light”: Isaac Newton,
1643-1727 (cont’d)
D.
The legacy of Newton
1.
2.
3.
4.
Certainty and objectivity lay in the precise mathematical
characterization of phenomenon
Popularization of Newton by John Locke
Buried at Westminster Abbey (Pope’s couplet)
Voltaire spread Newtonian ideas to France
IX.
A.
B.
C.
Science and modernity
Science as a justification for Western expansion of empire
Observations
1.
2.
3.
4.
D.
E.
F.
Transformations: Science and
Cultural Change
Science and elite knowledge
The authority of the ancients did not disappear quickly
Science did not subvert religion
Newton as a transitional figure between the past and the future
New answers to fundamental questions
Science and scientific institutions
The role of mathematics
X. Conclusion