The Scientific Revolution & The Enlightenment

Renaissance ► After suffering war and plague, Europe wanted to celebrate life  Questioned the Church & accepted ideas ► “Rebirth” of learning and the arts, inspired a spirit of curiosity in many areas  Scholars questioned ideas that had been accepted for hundreds of years  Bring back ideas of Greek & Rome  Transforms the way people see the world  begins in northern Italy in 14 th century & spreads all over Europe

Humanism ► Intellectual movement focused on human potential & achievement  Ancient Greek & Roman values  Focus on history, literature, philosophy, “The humanities”  Can enjoy life w/o offending God ► Renaissance Man: a man who excels in many areas ► Women  Expected to be educated, charming, inspire art

Scientific Revolution ► Scientific Revolution: new ways of thinking about the world based on observation & questioning ► Before 1500s, the Church decided truths about the world, few challenged ideas  GEOCENTRIC THEORY: Earth center of universe, all planets, sun, moon revolve around earth ► Aristotle original idea ► Christianity taught that God had intentionally done so because earth was a special place

Copernicus & Kepler ► Polish astronomer ► HELIOCENTRIC THEORY: sun is at center of universe, earth & planets revolve around it   Copernicus’ writings threatened the authority of the church   The church rejected Copernicus’ ideas ► Johannes Kepler proves mathematically that planets revolve around sun The Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with God by Jan Matejko

GALILEO GALILEI Galileo built a telescope to observe the stars and planets Galileo’s ideas supported the findings of Copernicus

Galileo vs. The Church ► Galileo’s findings scare Church leaders bc they went against Church teachings  If people believed the church was wrong about this, they could question other ideas… ► Pope summons Galileo  Threatened with torture  Signed confession, denies his findings  Lived under house arrest until death in 1642 Galileo facing Inquisition in 1616, by Cristiano Banti

Bacon & Descartes ► ► Use logic & reason ► ► Helped establish the scientific method ► ► Bacon: by understanding the world better we can improve people’s lives   Empiricism: experiment & draw conclusions ► ► Descartes: doubt everything until it is proven   Math & logic

Scientific Method ► Logical procedure for gathering & testing ideas  Observation (question)  Hypothesis  Experiment  Analysis  Conclusion

Isaac Newton Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, philosopher discovered three laws of motion and gravity Universe like clock: all parts work together perfectly, can be explained mathematically, God is clockmaker Newton’s 6" reflector telescope

Scientific Instruments & Medicine Red blood cells MicroscopeBarometer Thermometer Dissections

The physician Vesalius dissected corpses to study basic human anatomy. He is now known as the "Father of Modern Anatomy." Drawings from Vesalius’ book On the Fabric of the Human Body

Legacy of Scientific Revolution ► Transformed the way we see the world  Discoveries (heliocentric theory)  Scientific Method  Astronomy, medicine, inventions ► Inspired many people to think differently about the world, especially the human condition  Inspires the Enlightenment