The Scientific Revolution Ch 16

Rebirth of learning and the arts
Inspires others to take another look at the world

Encouraged followers to challenge accepted authority

Rejected some Church doctrine
indulgences

Earth was immovable, stationary, center of the universe

Everything else moved around the earth -Circular motion

Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome

. Aristotle -4th century BC
Said Earth was- Flat,Center of the universe, Stationary

2nd century AD
Believed that:Aristotle was right

If the earth moved…objects would be left behind

deliberately placed the earth at the center of the universe

Made the earth a special place

Supported the idea of creation

Sparked a new way of thinking about the world

Observation
Willingness to question accepted beliefs

No accurate explanation for the motion of the planets, moon, and sun

Calendar was out of sync

Sun is the center of the universe

1473-1543 AD
Polish cleric and astronomer

Studied planetary motion for over 25 years

Realized that the stars, earth and other planets were actually moving

Did not explain why the planets orbited the way they did

Contradicted the Church

Written by Copernicus

The book proposed a Heliocentric Universe

Did not receive a copy of it until he was on his deathbed

Very little at first

Took a ½ century for others to continue the research

Astronomer who built the most sophisticated observatory of his day

Continued Copernicus’ work
Recorded the movements of the planets

Compiled ridiculous amounts of data

Died before he could ever make sense of it

1571-1630 AD

Brahe’s student

Used (or stole?) Brahe’s data

Decided that mathematical laws governed the universe

1. Elliptical Orbits of Planets
2. Planets do not move at a uniform speed
3. Time it takes a planet to move around the sun is directly related to it’s distance from the sun.

Proved that Copernicus was right!
Proved mathematically that the planets move around the sun

1564-1642 AD
Italian scientist
Improved the telescope
Clearly supported Copernicus’ ideas

Described the observations Galileo had made with the telescope

Moon has an uneven surface

4 moons of Jupiter

Sun had dark spots

Refuted Aristotle

1616

1632

1633

1642

Logical procedure for gathering and testing ideas

Observation

Question

Hypothesis

Experiment

Analyze or interpret data in order to come to a conclusion

Who helped to develop the Scientific Method?

Brought together the works of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo by creating a single theory of motion

Universal Laws of Gravitation

Inertia
body in motion stays in motion etc.
Acceleration
FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE reaction!

1687
Newton published The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

One of the most important science books ever written

Explained how the universe worked

Placed God in the role of “clockmaker”

1590

1643

1714

1742

A. 1500-late 1600’s

1. sun centered universe
2. new physics-study of motion
3. a new way of questioning and studying the universe

1. Observation
2. Experiment
3. Reason

A philosophical system developed at Alexandria in the third century A.D. by Plotinus and his successors. It is based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts and posits a single source from which all existence emanates and with which an individual soul can be mystically united.

1. Artists and their observations of the natural world
2. The magnetic compass
3. The printing press
4. Gunpowder
5. A fascination with light (optics and lens grinding)

1. Humanists placed low value on science - More interested in classical antiquity and the authority of the ancients
2. Arabic translations of Greek classics
3. Rediscovery of Ptolemy and Archimedes
4. The universe as machine
5. Developing collaboration between artisans and intellectuals
6. Building machines for practical use
7. The laws of perspective and optics
8. Alchemy and astrology
9. Voyages of discovery

a) Heavenly bodies orbit in a hierarchy of spheres
b) Heavens and earth composed of different matter
c) Earth, air, fire, and water

1. Ptolemaic system did not conform to observations
2. Retrograde motion
3. Roman calendar out of alignment with movement of heavenly bodies - The "problem" of Easter and other holy days

1. Renaissance Man
2. Ptolemaic system had become too messy

4. Believed he had restored a pure understanding of God's plan but was troubled by its implications
5. New problems and inconsistencies
6. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)

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

(1546–1601)
1. A champion of observation
2. Observed the appearance of a new star (nova) in 1572
3. Built his own observatory
4. Tycho not a Copernican - Planets orbited the sun, the whole of which orbited a stationary earth
5. Court astronomer to Rudolph II at Prague

(1571–1630)
1. Served as Tycho's assistant
2. Everything had been created according to mathematical laws
a) Mathematics as the language of God
b) Mathematical perfection and musical harmonies

by Johannes Kepler
a) Planets travel in elliptical orbits
b) Speed of the planets vary with their distance from the sun
c) Magnetic forces keep the planets in orbital motion

4. Cosmographic Mystery (1596)
5. New Astronomy or Celestial Physics (1609)
6. The Harmonies of the World (1619)

1. A witty and persuasive writer (wrote in Latin and Italian)
A popularizer of the non-Aristotelian approach to science

1. Built his own telescope in 1610
2. Observed the features of the moon, the moons of Jupiter, and sun spots

(1610) by Galileo recorded his observations from his telescope

1. Disliked power of university authorities
2. Turned to princely courts
3. Took a position as tutor to the Medicis

(1615) by Galileo
a) One can be a sincere Copernican and a Catholic
b) Understanding the physical world is best left to the natural philosopher

1616

a) Inquisition banned the book
b) Galileo ordered to stand trial in 1633
c) Recanted his beliefs and placed under house arrest for life

1633

(1561–1626)
1. New confidence in the potential of human thought
2. Lord Chancellor to James I
3. Separation of scientific investigation from philosophical argument

a) Combining evidence from observations to draw general conclusions
b) Cooperation between researchers
c) "Useful" knowledge

1596–1650
An intellectually restless man

Descartes (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, reason exists, God exists

a) A "fresh start for knowledge"
b) Proceeds logically from one certainty to another
c) Mathematical thought an expression of the highest standards of reason

a) Nature as machine
b) Rejected the medieval distinction between the works of man and those of nature
c) Toward a new conception of matter
d) Nature and natural laws

1. Mostly France and Holland
2. Mathematics and logic
3. Blaise Pascal
4. Christian Huygens
5. Baruch Spinoza

a) Probability theory
b) Theology

(1629–1695)
The problem of impact and orbital motion

(1632–1677)
Applied geometry to ethics

1. Began with practical research
2. Sought empirical laws based on evidence
3. William Harvey (1578–1657)
4. Robert Boyle (1627–1691)
5. Robert Hooke (1635–1703)

1662
a) Committed to experiment and collaborative work
b) Serving political and intellectual purposes
c) A common sense of purpose
d) Philosophical Transactions

1666

a) Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673)
b) Maria Winkelmann (1670–1720)
(1) Refused admission to Berlin Academy of Science
c) Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717)
(1) Studied entomology

1643–1727
1. Born to a family of small landowners
2. Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (stayed thirty-five years)
3. A reclusive, secretive, and obsessive man

1. Optics - Used prisms to demonstrate that light was composed of different-colored rays
2. Mathematics - Integral and differential calculus
3. Gravity - The falling apple
4. Reflective telescope
5. Elected to the Royal Society (1672)

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

1713 answered objections to the Principia

1. Certainty and objectivity lay in the precise mathematical characterization of phenomenon
2. Buried at Westminster Abbey (Pope's couplet)
3. Voltaire spread Newtonian ideas to France