1. The Scientific Revolution (1500s-1700s)

2. What was the Scientific Revolution?
Beginning of modern science
Scientific method: Depends upon logic, observation, and reason rather than faith
Created the technologies and techniques that built the modern world
Many universities formed

3. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
Earth revolves around the sun
Book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Heliocentric theory:
Sun is the center of the universe

4. Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) Danish royal astrologer
Follower of Ptolemaic system
Observed and mapped over 700 stars in a 20-year period

5. What did Brahe place an emphasis on?
“To deny the power and influence of the stars is to detract from divine wisdom and influence. What more prejudiced or what sillier thought could one have about God than that He had made the most enormous and extraordinary of all heavens and a theatre of so many shining stars in vain and to no useful purpose, when no human being does even the most worthless task except for a particular purpose?”
Tycho Brahe, De disciplinis mathematicis oratio, 1574

6. Sir Francis Bacon ( )
Preferred inductive reasoning and facts over theory
Invented the scientific method

7. Galileo Galilei ( )
Invented the pendulum clock, thermometer, water pump, and sector
Created his own telescope based on another model
Discovered speed of acceleration for gravity

8. Rene Descartes (1595-1650) Deductive logic
Deduced the existence of God
Invented Cartesian geometry (xy axis)
“I think therefore I am”
Perception is unreliable- deduction is only tool

9. Who does Descartes ultimately trust?
“Nevertheless, mindful of my own weakness, I make no firm pronouncements, but submit all these opinions to the authority of the Catholic Church and the judgment of those wiser than myself. And I would not wish anyone to believe anything except what he is convinced of by evident and irrefutable reasoning.”
Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, 1644

10. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) The Principia
Tied up the loose ends of Kepler and Galileo
Three Laws of Motion
Defined gravity and its laws
Invented optics and calculus
Royal Society

11. What scientific principle is Newton describing?
“Then the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea are deduced from these forces by propositions that are also mathematical. If only we could derive the other phenomena of nature from mechanical principles by the same kind of reasoning! For many things lead me to have a suspicion that all phenomena may depend on certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by causes not yet known, either are impelled toward one another and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled from one another and recede.”
Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia), 1687.

12. Rise of the Scientific Community
Developed the modern scientific method
Universe ordered according to natural laws
Discovered that scientific laws can be discovered by human reason
Took the role of a deity or god out of the study of the universe
Mechanical views of the universe
Deistic view of God

13. Review Questions Describe the Scientific Revolution.
Who is credited with inventing the scientific method?
Who came up with the Three Laws of Planetary Motion?
What famous Italian astronomer was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition?
What English scientist defined gravity?