Causes of the Scientific Revolution



Causes of the Scientific Revolution

• Renaissance discovery of new classical manuscripts caused scholars to question accepted knowledge

• Exploration broadens Europeans horizons

• Printing press spreads new ideas

• Discoveries of scientists challenged accepted thinking

New Ideas of the Universe – A heliocentric universe

• Copernicus: proposed a new heliocentric universe Wrote On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies

• Brahe: used observation to record movements of the planets

• Kepler: used mathematics to prove Copernicus’s theory

• Galileo: law of the pendulum; falling objects, telescope

Wrote Starry Messenger – Jupiter had four moons; sun had dark spots, moon had rough and uneven surface. Wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which presented the views of both Ptolemy and Copernicus. His support of Copernicus’ theory resulted in an appearance before the Inquisition (forgiven in 1992!)

• Newton: Wrote Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia); gravity; God as a clockmaker

The Scientific Method

Francis Bacon: inductive reasoning; experimentation

• Rene Descartes: deductive reasoning: logic mathematics

Scientific Ideas and Discoveries

• Zacharias Janssen: microscope

• Anton van Leeuwenhoek: observed bacteria, red blood cells

Evangelista Torricelli: mercury barometer

• Gabriel Fahrenheit: mercury thermometer in glass; freezing 32 degrees

• Anders Celsius: freezing 0 degrees

• Andreas Vesalius: dissected human corpses; wrote, On the Fabric of the Human Body

• William Harvey: wrote On the Motion of the Heart and Blood, which described the heart acting as a pump to circulate blood through the body

• Edward Jenner: developed a safe smallpox vaccine using cowpox

• Robert Boyle: founder of modern chemistry; Boyle’s Law most famous contribution; suggested that matter was made up of smaller primary particles joined in various ways Wrote The Sceptical Chymist

• Joseph Priestley: Englishman who isolated oxygen from the air

• Antoine Lavoisier: Frenchman who separated oxygen and named it

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