Download The development of science during the renaissance The

The development of science during the renaissance
The renaissance began in the middle ages and
changed the way of the scientific thinking and it
meant that people re-used the ideas of the Greek
and Roman. For example Ptolomeus, a Greek guy
born 87 after Christ. He found out that planets
were moving stars. He also found out that they
circled in epicycles. This are circles in a circle.
In the middle ages the church was the main authority. They borrowed ideas from the
Greeks. For example that the earth was the centre of the universe. The church liked
to be correct and didn’t allowed any ideas which weren’t the same as theirs. People
who had different ideas were arrested and put in jail or were killed. This was called
the inquisition.
Copernicus
Copernicus was a German born in 1473. He discovered that the sun was the center
of the universe: his heliocentric theory. This was very new for his time, because the
geocentric view of the universe, the view in which people thought the earth was the
centre of the universe, was till then the only one.
He also wrote a book: On the theory of heavenly
bodies, which was published just before his death.
His book was put on the Index; a list with books
that weren’t allowed by the church. Due his
heliocentric theory a lot of things changed in
science.
Keppler
Keppler was a poor guy but he also was a mathematical genius. He wanted to find
out how fast planets moved. He found out that planets don’t move in circles, as
Ptolomeus said, but in ellipses. Due this he also found out that the planets closer to
the sun move faster than planets far
away. The last thing he discovered was that the time it took for a planet to go
around the sun in one year; so that length of a year could differ between two
planets.
To prove his theory, that planets move in ellipses, he needed the data from Ticho
Brahe, but Ticho also wanted the calculations from Keppler. Luckily for Keppler Ticho
died first.
Ticho Brahe
Ticho Brahe was a Danish nobleman, who discovered
the Nova Stella. It meant new star, because nova
means new and Stella means star. He also got two
observatories: Uraniborg and Stjerneborg. He got
them from the Danish king, who liked everything that
might break the power of the church. He used the
model that the earth rotates around the sun and the
other planets around the earth for it.
Galileo Galilei
Another famous scientist and mostly called as the father of
modern science, was Galileo Galilei. He discovered the
telescope, with lenses he found in a toyshop. He called it
telescope, because tele means distance and scope means
seen. He discovered that if you put a weak lens and a strong
lens behind each other and with the correct distance between
them, you get a good view of something in the far distance.
But he discovered more, for example the natural and unnatural motion. The
unnatural motion is that when the object runs out of motion, it will stop. The
standard situation is that when there is no influence, the object keeps moving in a
straight line with the same velocity.
And another thing Galileo found out was where the
moons of Jupiter were made up of. In the middle they
have earth, above that a layer of water, above that
air and above that they have fire and smoke.
The modern view on science has changed
dramatically since the renaissance. The view is now
that science is the cornerstone of our society and that
experiments only determine what’s correct. Most
people also think that Galileo Galilei was the father of
the modern science.
So, to conclude: the most famous scientists during the time of the renaissance were
Ptolomeus with his epicycles, Copernicus with his heliocentric view, Keppler with his
ellipses, Ticho Brahe with his Nova Stella and Galileo, father of modern science, with
his telescope.
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