White Plains Public Schools / Overview



Revolutionary Thinking - The Birth of Modern Science WHAP/Napp

“The scientific revolution was a marvellous advance in the way the world was seen. Whereas, before 1550, the skilled worker in metals was responsible for such advances as the mechanical clock and the printing press, it was the skilled worker in glass who facilitated such later discoveries as the microscope and telescope. Glass became the scientist’s transplanted eye for seeing the invisible.

Galileo’s improved telescope was achieving in the skies what Columbus and Magellan had done by sailing the seas; it was mapping new worlds. Through his telescopes, mostly made from Venetian glass, Galileo inspected the moon, which he described as a ‘most beautiful and delightful sight.’ He also detected what nobody else had seen – the moon’s craters and unpolished surface. He discovered four new planets, was the first to see the spots on the sun, and found that the Milky Way consisted of stars.

He also came to the same conclusion as Copernicus: that the earth was not the center of the universe to which every other heavenly body paid court. This insight carried profound implications for certain sentences in the Old Testament which Galileo denounced as written by the ignorant for the ignorant. The church raised a heavy hand against him in 1616 and an even heavier hand after he persisted with his theories. He spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest on his little farm near Florence.

To the telescope, the Dutch and Italian glassworkers added the microscope. Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who sold dress materials and clothes in the Dutch town of Delft, became a master maker of microscopes. With a magnification of at least 270, his microscopes saw far more than had ever been seen by human eyes. In 1677 he described for the first time the spermatozoon. He described with accuracy the red blood cell. His microscope enabled him to puncture various widely held myths: that the flea was born out of sand and that the eel was hatched out of dew. One of his most useful finds was that a flying insect laid the eggs that produced the weevils which ruined wheat and flour held in storage. Meanwhile in England, Robert Hooke, while looking at plant tissues under the microscope, coined the crucial word ‘cell.’ It was not yet realized that all plants and animals consisted of cells.” ~ A Short History of the World

1- How does the author describe the Scientific Revolution? __________________________________________________________________

2- Identify four conclusions Galileo reached with his telescope. __________________________________________________________________

3- What conclusion did both Copernicus and Galileo reach? __________________________________________________________________

4- Why did the Church raise “a heavy hand against” Galileo? __________________________________________________________________

5- How did the Church punish Galileo? __________________________________________________________________

6- What did Anton van Leeuwenhoek identify with his microscope? __________________________________________________________________

7- What term was coined by Robert Hooke? ______________________________

|Notes: |

|The Birth of Modern Science |

|Makers of Europe’s Scientific Revolution (between mid-sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries) did not rely on scripture or |

|ancient philosophers |

|Careful observations, controlled experiments, formulation of general laws |

|Copernicus from Poland, Galileo from Italy, Descartes from France, and Newton from England(departed from older ways of thinking |

|Altered ideas about place of humankind within the cosmos and challenged both teachings and authority of Church |

|But why did the Scientific Revolution occur first in Europe |

|Islamic world had generated most advanced science during 800s and 1400s |

|China’s elite culture of Confucianism was sophisticated and secular |

|Yet Europe’s historical development as a reinvigorated and fragmented civilization gave rise to conditions uniquely favorable to |

|science |

|Why Europe? |

|Autonomy of emerging universities |

|By 1215, University of Paris(“corporation of masters and scholars,” could admit and expel students, establish course instruction, |

|and grant a “license” |

|Universities in Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and Salamanca became “neutral zones of intellectual autonomy” |

|In Islamic world, within colleges known as madrassas, Quranic studies and religious law held the central place |

|Earlier openness to free inquiry and religious toleration was increasingly replaced by a disdain for scientific and philosophical |

|inquiry |

|And Chinese education focused on preparing for a rigidly defined set of civil service examinations(based on moral texts of |

|Confucianism |

|Western Europe also was in a position to draw extensively upon the knowledge of other cultures due to cultural diffusion during |

|Crusades |

|Before Scientific Revolution, educated Europeans held a view of world derived from Aristotle and Ptolemy(earth-centered(Church |

|favored |

|Scientists |

|In 1543, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was published |

|Nicolaus Copernicus argued that “at the middle of all things lies the sun” or heliocentric model of universe |

|Johannes Kepler showed that the planets follow elliptical orbits, undermining the ancient belief that they moved in perfect circles|

|Galileo Galilei, an Italian, developed an improved telescope, with which he observed sunspots, or blemishes, moving across face of |

|sun |

|Culmination of Scientific Revolution(work of Sir Isaac Newton |

|Formulated the modern laws of motion and mechanics, scarcely modified until twentieth century(universal law of gravitation |

|Knowledge of universe could be obtained through human reason alone |

|Like the physical universe, human body also lost some of its mystery |

|Careful dissections of cadavers and animals |

|Scientists faced strenuous opposition from Catholic Church |

|Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, proclaiming an infinite universe and many worlds, was burned at stake in 1600 |

|Applying Scientific Thinking to Human Affairs |

|Thinkers began to apply human reason, skepticism of authority |

|Adam Smith (1723-1790)(laws accounting for operation of economy |

|Smith spoke of the laws of supply and demand as well as concept of the invisible hand restoring markets to efficiency and |

|functionality |

|Many believed the outcome of scientific development would be “enlightenment,” a term defines 18th century in European history |

|Philosophers took aim at arbitrary governments, “divine right of kings,” and aristocratic privileges of European society |

|John Locke (1632-1704)(constitutional government, contract between rulers and ruled, opposed divine right |

|Voltaire (1694-1778) advocated religious tolerance |

|Central theme of Enlightenment (Age of Reason)( progress |

|Inspired American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions |

|But also reaction against reason(Jean-Jacques Rousseau ( 1712-1778) minimized the importance of book learning for children |

|The Romantic movement in art appealed to emotion not reason |

|But Charles Darwin(The Origin of Species (1859)(evolution |

|At the same time, Karl Marx (1818-1883) articulated a new view of human history(class struggles |

|Scientific Revolution spread(most desired “product” of Europe |

Complete Graphic Organizer Below:

Questions:

• Why did the Scientific Revolution occur in Europe rather than in China or the Islamic world?

• What was revolutionary about the Scientific Revolution?

• In what ways did the Enlightenment challenge older patterns of European thinking?

• How did nineteenth-century developments in the sciences challenge the faith of the Enlightenment?

• In what ways was European science received in the major civilizations of Asia in the early modern era?

|Which of the following scientists, in On the Revolution of |Which of the following movements applied reason to the problems |

|Heavenly Bodies, reasserted the Greek and Chinese theories that |of human affairs and can be understood as an extension of the |

|the universe was heliocentric? |Scientific Revolution into the field of politics? |

|Nicolaus Copernicus |Renaissance |

|Johannes Kepler |Green Revolution |

|Galileo Galilei |Enlightenment |

|René Descartes |Protestant Reformation |

|Isaac Newton |Bolshevik Revolution |

| | |

|Galileo ran afoul of church authorities when he promoted the idea|Who is credited with bringing awareness of the heliocentric |

|that |nature of the solar system into Western civilization? |

|Observation and reason were superior to other scientific methods.|Aristotle |

|Direct observation of the natural world was the only source of |Galileo |

|human knowledge. |Columbus |

|Ptolemy, and not Copernicus, had the correct heliocentric model. |Copernicus |

|Earth was not the center of God’s creation. |Descartes |

|All of the above. | |

| |Which of the following thinkers established the principles of |

|Which movement from the following list established a tradition of|objects in motion and defined the forces of gravity? |

|seeking answers to questions about nature through the application|Descartes |

|of reason and methodical investigation of the world? |Rousseau |

|Phenomenology |Newton |

|Scientific Revolution |Bacon |

|Protestant Reformation |Galileo |

|Enlightenment | |

|Renaissance | |

Thesis Statement: Change Over Time: European Intellectual Thought (500 – 1800 C.E.)

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The Impact of the Scientific Revolution

Causes and Effects and Scientists of the Scientific Revolution:

Why Europe?

The Enlightenment or the Age of Reason: Ideas, Impact and Philosophers:

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