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The Scientific Revolution
Overview
• The Scientific Rev. began in the 16th century and accelerated for the next two.
• Led to a rethinking of religious and moral issues.
• Birth of the scientific method and a rational view of the universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus(1473-1543)
• Previous theory = Ptolemaic System: Earth is the center of the universe. Everything else in crystalline spheres that make them move.
• Caused variations in the calendar. Seafaring commerce needed a better model.
• Copernicus thought the Sun at the center made more mathematical sense
• Mathematical astronomy + empirical data + observation = the new model for scientific thought
• Uncle was Bishop of Ermeland and appointed him canon
• Friends pressured him to publish. “Rheticus,” his enthusiastic disciple did first.
• On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres is finally published after he dies with a forged introduction that downplays the his certainty in his system.
• Friends in the Catholic Church had actually encouraged him to publish and his work was read in Catholic universities.
• Martin Luther and Calvin were highly critical.
• Leads to our Gregorian Calendar
Tycho Brahe• Was given an island by Denmark’s
King Frederick II. It became a whole astronomical community.
• Thought the Sun went around the Earth but other planets went around the Sun
• Left his records to Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler
• Wanted to be a Lutheran minister but was too poor. Taught math instead.
• Kepler concluded the Sun was at the center but planetary orbits were elliptical, not perfectly circular.
• Believed magnetism, not spirits, moved the planets.
Galileo Galilei(1564-1642)
• Taught math and created instruments for his shop. Invented the thermometer.
• Designed his own telescope. In 1610 looked to the Heavens, saw their complexity and believed Copernicus.
• Said the Bible and nature were 2 languages. In the Bible God spoke so man could understand.
• Jesuits accused Galileo of heresy and he defends his self in Rome in 1616.
• Published Dialogues of the Two Chief Systems of the World in 1632.
• In 1633 Pope Urban VIII called an ill Galileo to Rome, threatened him with torture, banned Dialogue, forced him to recant and placed him under house arrest.
Francis Bacon(1561-1626)
• Believed in Empiricism: the use of experiment and observation derived from sensory evidence to construct scientific theory.
• Challenged the superiority of the ancients
• Died from pneumonia after studying the effects of freezing meat.
Rene Descartes(1596-1650)
• Mathematician who stressed deductive reasoning over Bacon’s inductive approach.
• His Discourse on Method related all human thought to mathematics
• Divide existence between things of the mind and “extension” (matter)
• Considered the father of modern philosophy and analytical geometry
Isaac Newton(1642-1727)
• Published Principia Mathematica in 1687. Mathematically described gravity and laid the basis for modern physics.
• Proved the Sun to be the center of the solar system
• Also believed in the importance of empirical data and observation alongside math.
• Devoutly religious and used the observation of fixed laws to show the rationality of God
John Locke(1632-1704)
• In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding he described the human mind as a blank slate.
• Minds form through experience and can be molded through environment.