Scientific Revolution

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Scientific Revolution
Age of Genius
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Reasons for the Change

• Foremost change in world view travel - Chinese
  calendars disprove the flood
• Modern science - experimental observations and
  mathematics
• Had always been subordinate to theology
• Astrology and physics led the way
• Traditional views were based on a) Aristotelian
  mechanicsb) Ptolemaic astronomy

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Traditional Ideas

• Common sense proved Aristotle correct - earth
  stood at the center of the universe
• Aristotles ideas were accepted for 2,000 years
  because 1) he offered common sense explanations,
  2) pacified religion - Great chain of being
• Inanimate objects - lowest level -
  liquidsvegetable class - life and existencedumb
  animals - feeling and lifeman - intelligence and
  soulspiritual world - angels

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• In humans there were 4 humorsa) melancholyb)
  phlegmc) bloodd) choler
• They passed through the veins from the liver to
  the heart - good life needed harmony

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Copernicus

• Polish clergyman
• Astronomer based his research on Ptolemy
• Heliocentric theory - On the Revolution of the
  Heavenly Spheres (1543)
• Where was God?
• Calvin it cannot be moved
• Luther called him a fool
• Catholic reaction was milder, 1616 denounced his
  theories

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Copernician Theory

• The universe was staggering
• The stars are at rest
• Earth was just another planet

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• Son of a Danish nobleman
• Agreed with Copernicus
• Studied the stars for 20 years
• But believed the sun was the center of the
  universe and earth remained stationary

Brahe
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• German
• Mathematician
• Had been Brahes assistant
• 3 laws of motion

Kepler
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Galileo

• Italian
• Mathematician
• Conducted experiments to prove what would
  actually happen.
• Designed a telescope to see the universe
• Formulated the law of inertia - objects are in
  continual motion
• Also worked with gravity

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• Worked for the Medicis of Tuscany
• Pope Urban VIII allowed him to write on worldly
  system but he could not judge which one actually
  existed
• Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World
  (1632)
• In 1633 at 68 he was tried for heresy by the
  Inquisition
• Facing death he recanted, but his books
  circulated throughout Europe
• Religion vs Science

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Isaac Newton

• English genius, intensely religious
• Mathematician
• Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
  (1687)
• Principia was the synthesis of the revolution
• The law of gravity
• Universe one system

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Newtons Laws

• 1) a body remains at rest or motion unless acted
  upon by another source
• 2) changes in motion are proportional to the
  energy exerted upon the object
• 3) to every action there is an equal and opposite
  reaction
• If I have seen further than others it is by
  standing on the shoulders of giants

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Francis Bacon

• English politician, attorney, and writer
• Attacked the reverence to ancient thinkers
• Developed the theory of empiricism(study as much
  as possible, compare and analyze before making
  speculations)
• Empirical knowledge would make nations rich and
  powerful

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• 1620 wrote Novum Organum (new method of acquiring
  knowledge
• Generalizations can only be made by inductive
  reasoning
• Inductive reasoning - move from the particular to
  the general

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René Descartes

• Promoted deductive reasoning
• Reason out a general law and then apply it
  broadly to all cases
• Reduced all matter to spiritual and physical
  -Cartesian Dualism
• Doubted all that could be doubted excepted his
  own existence
• cogito ergo sum
• Also developed analytical geometry

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Causes of the Revolution

• Medieval philosophy separated from religion
• Universities established departments of
  astronomy, mathematics, and physics
• Renaissance thinkers recovered many of the
  classical thinkers
• Patronage
• Better instruments
• Reason

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• Royal Society of London created in 1662 by
  Charles II
• French Royal Academy of Science in 1666 by
  Colbert for Louis XIV
• Absolute monarchs used science to gain economic
  and military advantages
• Protestant countries gained a huge advantage
• Church power greatly reduced never to be as
  powerful