Royal Academies

• creation of new societies and journals enabling scientists to communicate

• Creation of the French and the English Royal Academy

• French Academy – controlled by the state

• English Academy – received little government encouragement

Sir Francis Bacon: Scientific Method

• “the true and lawful goal of the sciences is none other than this: the human life be endowed with new discoveries and power”

• Proceed from the particular to the general

• Stressed experiment and induction

• Empiricism

Descartes: Scientific Method

• Believed in deduction and mathematical logic

• Rationalism

• Believed he could start with self- evident truths and compose complex conclusions

Unification with Sir Francis Newton

• SIR FRANCIS BACON + DESCARTES were unified under Sir Isaac Newton

• Concluded systematic observation and experiments to receive general concepts –

deductions derived from general concepts which could be tested and verified by precise

experimentation

Physiology

Physiology is the study of the function of a living organism

Saw most of the more notable changes in medicine during the Scientific Revolution Late medieval ideas of physiology dominated by Galen, a

2nd century Greek Physician Galen had a theory that the human body had two separate

blood systems

Three leaders of changes in physiology and medicine in general: Paracelsus Andreas Vesalius William Harvey

Paracelsus (1493-1541)

Born Philippus Aureolus von Hohenheim, renamed himself Paracelsus “greater than Celsus” an ancient

physician

Rejected work of both Aristotle and Galen

believed that each human was a small replica (microcosm) of the universe (macrocosm)

Later considered father of modern medicine “like cures like”

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) and William Harvey (1578-1657)

Andreas Vesalius is known for advancements in the study of a human’s internal anatomy

He wrote On the Fabric of the Human Body, which illustrated his personal dissection of a human body Vesalius was able to create an accurate depiction of

the individual organs and structure of the human body

Rectified teachings of Galen, such as the blood system and origins of the blood, which Galen said to be liver, not heart

William Harvey advanced these findings even further when he discovered that blood traveled in a complete circuit throughout the body, using both veins and arteries Laid the foundation for modern physiology

Early Astronomy

During the Late Middle Ages, all astronomy was based on the findings of ancient philosophers Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as corresponding Christian beliefs Geocentric Conception- the universe is seen as a

series of concentric spheres, with a motionless Earth at the center

This idea corresponded with the traditional ideas that agreed with religion, where the Earth is at the center of the universe, and there were spheres for Heaven and Hell

Geocentric Conception

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Studied mathematics and astronomy at University of Krakow, Bologna, and Padua

Wrote On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres First presented idea of a

heliocentric universe Universe consists of 8 spheres, a

motionless sun at the center The moon revolves around Earth,

and Earth rotates on an axis

Rejected by Protestant Reformers, most notably Martin Luther

Heliocentric vs. Geocentric

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

Danish Nobleman After being given position of an

island near Copenhagen, he built an elaborate castle with observatories and precise astronomical instruments

Recorded positions and movement of stars and planets in detail for 20 years His findings led him to fully

reject Aristotle and Ptolemy’s systems of the universe Never accepted that the Earth

spun on an axis

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

Acted as an assistant to Tycho Brahe while Brahe was imperial mathematician in Prague Kepler used Brahe’s extensive astronomical data

to create his three laws of planetary motion:

1. Kepler rejected Copernicus’s heliocentric ideas by showing that the orbit of planets around the sun were not circular, they were elliptical

2. The speed of a planet is greater when it is closer to the sun and decreases in speed as it gets further away

3. The square of a planet’s period of revolution is proportional to the cube of its average distance from the sun

These three laws eliminated the idea of uniform circular motion for orbiting planets, and completely disproved the traditional Ptolemaic system

Kepler’s new system of the Universe

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Galileo initiated a new age of astronomy, being the first to use the telescope to make observations Began to change previous thinking

of the universe in that he showed how the rest of the universe was composed similarly to Earth, not in unchanging substance

Most famous for his refusal to reject the Copernican heliocentric system after being tried by the Inquisition Placed under house arrest in his

house near Florence for his remaining eight years of life, studying mechanics