BACKGROUND TO THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

Scientific Revolution - between 1500 and 1700, radical changes in people’s view of the universe and their place in it.

1. View of the universe in 1500 – Geocentric Theory

Crystalline Spheres g

…10^th sphere

a. Aristotle (4^th Century BC)

b. Aquinas (13^th Century AD)

c. Observation ≠ Theory Ptolemy (2^nd c. AD) epicycles, eccentrics, equant

2. Physics (matter and motion)

a. Sublunary – 4 elements

i. Fire h

ii. Air h

iii. Water i

iv. Earth i

b. Superlunary

i. Matter incorruptible

ii. Motion circular

c. Observation ≠ Theory

i. Projectiles

ii. Falling bodies

3. Anatomy

a. Galen (2^nd c. AD) aAristotle aHippocrates

i. 4 humors – blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile

ii. Purging, bleeding

4. Modern Scientific Method – Galileo first modern scientist

a. Problem identified (observation)

b. Data gathered (experiment)

c. Hypothesis formulated (induction)

d. Hypothesis tested (deduction)

5. Why did the Scientific Revolution occur when it did?

a. Voyages of discovery

b. Printing press

c. Protestant Reformation

d. Renaissance

e. “Great men”

6. Copernicus (1473 – 1543) – Polish mathematician

a. Asked by Pope to reform calendar by improving astronomical calculations

b. Heliocentric Theory – 8 spheres carrying planets revolved around the sun; the moon around the earth

c. Undermined Aristotelian concept of universe – religious implications

7. Brahe (1546 – 1601)

a. Astronomer given island by king of Denmark in 1576.

b. 20 years of observation of movements and positions of planets and stars

sun

earth

8. Johann Kepler (1571 – 1630) Brahe asked Kepler to use his data to prepare a new set of tables of planetary motion 3 Laws of Planetary Motion – Data fit the theory

a. 1^st – Planets’ orbits oval, not round

b. 2^nd – As D >, S <

c. 3^rd – t²₁ = d³₁

t²₂ d³₂

9. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642)

a. 1588 awarded chair of mathematics at University of Pisa

b. Conducted experiments to test Aristotle’s theories of motion

i. Analyzed results mathematically

ii. Idea of inertia = property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force

c. 1591 chair of mathematics at Padua

i. Research on motion

ii. Interest in telescope (1608 – Lippershey) Sidereal Messenger (1610) – more stars, mountains on moon, sunspots, moons of Jupiter

_d. 1610 philosopher and mathematician to young Cosimo de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

i. Conflict with church (1623) – The Assayer

ii. Arraigned before Inquisition – Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1633) Discourses Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)

10. Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727)

a. Professor of mathematics at Cambridge University

i. 1665 plague closed university

ii. Worked on composition of light and law of gravitation

b. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Law of Gravitation – every body in the universe attracts every other body with force proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them

c. Physics became universal

i. Overwhelming optimism

ii. Religious implications – God as “clockmaker”

11. Medical Science

a. von Hohenheim (Paracelsus) 1493 – 1541

i. Diseases were localized in particular organs and due to chemical influences

ii. Proper dosage of poison which caused a disease would cure it

b. Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 64) The Fabric of the Human Body (1543) Humans had no rete mirabile of fine arteries

c. William Harvey (1578 – 1657) Discovery of circulation of the blood