1. Scientific Revolution (1500s-1600s)

2. Overview
Main Idea: In the mid-1500s, scientists began to question accepted beliefs and make new theories based on experimentation.
Contemporary relevance: Such questioning led to the development of the scientific method still in use today.
Vocabulary: geocentric theory, scientific revolution, heliocentric theory, scientific method, Isaac Newton

3. Scientific Revolution?
Revolution: a substantial change in the way something works or is organized, or in the way people think.
Scientific revolution: a new way of thinking about the natural world based on careful observation and mathematical calculation.

4. Causes of Scientific Revolution
European exploration in Africa, Asia, and the Americas during the Renaissance new truths to be found
European exploration  scientific research in astronomy and mathematics  navigational instrument, geographic measurements
Invention of printing press  spread of challenging ideas

5. Conflicting Views of the Solar System
Geocentric theory: a system which puts the Earth in the center of the solar system
Created by Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, developed by Ptolemy
Christians taught that God intentionally placed Earth in the center of the solar system

6. Conflicting Views of the Solar System
Heliocentric Theory- system that places the sun at the center of the solar system.
Developed by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
Waits to publish his book On the Revolution of Heavenly Bodies until the last year of his life
Danish mathematician, Johannes Kepler, demonstrated mathematically that Copernicus’s basic ideas were true.

7. Galileo Constructed a telescope to observe the rotation of planets
Supported Copernicus’ heliocentric theory
experiments to show that the velocity of falling bodies depends not on their weight but the height from which they fall
modern law of inertia
He was put on trial by the Catholic church because his ideas contradicted against its teachings

8. The Scientific Method
The scientific method is a step-by-step process to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.
The Scientific Method led to a shift in the way people understood the world.

9. Key figures Francis Bacon
Empiricism/experimental method: experiment and draw conclusion
Descartes
Use mathematics and logic
Everything should be doubted until proved by reason
“I think, therefore I am”
Issac Newton
Developed calculus
Law of universal gravitation
God as the clockmaker

12. Effects of Scientific Revolution
The spread of new ideas throughout Europe
Challenged the traditional authority of the catholic church
New ideas of this period directly led to the Enlightenment

13. Regents Question
Francis Bacon, Galileo, and Isaac Newton promoted the idea that knowledge should be based on
the experiences of past civilizations
experimentation and observation
emotions and feelings
the teachings of the Catholic Church