SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
SUMMARIZE THE 3 CHANGES I THE 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES THAT GELPED THE
NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS DEVELOP NEW VIEWS
 Renaissance humanists made available the works of
Ptolemy, Archimedes and Plato
 Invention of new instruments for more accurate
measurement(telescope, microscope)
 Printing press spreads ideas
 With the advance of mathematics (algebra,
trigonometry and geometry) it became easier for
scientists to demonstrate the proof of abstract theories
with clear, logical evidence
Explain what the Ptolemaic system
is based upon.
 Geocentric --- it places the Earth at the center of the
Universe
Nicolaus Copernicus
 Mathematician; Poland
 Belief---heliocentric ---sun-centered universe; planets
revolve around the sun
Johannes Kepler
 Mathematician; German
 Laws of Planetary motion (confirms sun-centered
universe)
 Planets orbit sun in elliptical pattern not circular; sun
located toward end of the ellipse
Galileo Galilei
 Italian Scientists; taught Mathematics
 Regular observations of the heavens using the
telescope
 Discoveries: mountains on Earth’s moon; 4 moons
around Jupiter; sunspots
 Heavenly bodies are composed of material substance
not pure orbs of light (idea of Ptolemy)
 Published The Starry Messenger (1610) – made people
aware of new view of the universe
Issac Newton
 Prof. of Mathematics; work: Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy
 Defined 3 laws of motion that govern planetary bodies as
well as objects on Earth
 Crucial to whole argument --- universal law of gravitation
 Every object in the universe is attracted to every other object
by a force called gravity
 This one universal law could explain all the motion in the
universe, mathematically calculated.
 Ideas created new picture of the universe --- one huge,
regulated uniform machine that worked according to
natural laws
Andreas Vasalius
 Accurately described the individual organs and general
structure of the human body
 Human dissection
William Harvey
 Showed heart – NOT LIVER – was the beginning point
for the circulation of blood
 Proved blood flows through the veins and arteries and
makes a complete circuit through the body
What did Vasalius andHarvey do differently than Galen
that led to their medical discoveries?
 Dissected human bodies
Robert Boyle
 1st to conduct controlled experiments in chemistry
 Boyle’s Law --- volume of a gas varies with the pressure
exerted on it
Antoine Lavoisier
 System for naming chemical elements
 Founder of modern chemistry
Margaret Cavendish (philosopher)
 Work – Observatons upon Experimental Philosophy
 Critical that humans, through science, were the
masters of nature
 published under her own name
Maria Winkelmann (atronomer)
 Discovered a comet
 Applied to Berlin Academy – rejected – told studies
would interfere with duties women were expected to
perform
Describe the obstacles that women I the 1600s and
1700s faced in being accepted as scientists
* little opportunity for formal training or employment
in science
• Work not taken seriously
• Science was male dominated and at odds with
domestic duties of women
RENE DESCARTES’S
 1ST PRINCIPLE – “I think therefore I am”
 2nd PRINCIPLE - Because the mind cannot be doubted
by the body and material world can, the 2 must be
radically different”.
 Separation of mind and body – This idea allowed
scientist to view matter as dead or inert; should be
investigated independently by reason
 Father of Rationalism – system of though based on the
belief that reason is the chief source of knowledge
FRANCIS BACON
 Developed scientific Method
 Inductive reasoning – proceeding from the particular
to the general
 Scientific Method: systematic procedure for collecting
and analyzing evidence
 Crucial to the evolution of science I the modern world