Scientific Revolution 1

1. Some scholars believe that the history of scientific achievement had its own basic internal logic and that nonscientific factors had limited significance; however, they neglect the broader historical context. Others stress external economic, social, and religious factors that came out of the scientific developments. However, both of these approaches need to be brought together.

2. Aristotle believed that the earth was motionless and was fixed at the center of the universe. Around it moved ten separate transparent crystal spheres. In the first eight spheres were embedded the moon, the sun, the five known planets, and the fixed stars. Then there were two spheres added during the Middle Ages to account for slight changes in the positions of the stars over the centuries. After the tenth sphere was heaven, where God and the saved souls were. Angels kept the spheres moving in perfect circles. Aristotle believed that there were distinct differences between the world of the celestial spheres and that of the earth. The spheres were made of a perfect, incorruptible fifth essence while the sublunar world was made up of four imperfect, changeable elements. The light elements of air and fire na-turally moved upward, while the heavy elements of water and earth naturally moved down. The natural directions of motion did not always work out, as elements were often mixed and affected by outside forces. Aristotle believed that a uniform force moved an object at a constant speed and as soon as that force was removed, the object would stop.

3. They were accepted because they offered an understandable, commonsense explanation for what could be seen. The theories fit nicely into Christian doctrines. It put humans in the center and resonating in the belief of the great chain of being.

4. When Copernicus was young, he studied church law and astronomy in various universities and saw how professional astronomers depended for their most accurate calculations on Ptolemy, an astronomer during the 100s. Copernicus was not interested in astrology and felt that Ptolemy’s inaccurate rules detracted from the majesty of a perfect Creator. He formulated a hypothesis that argued that the stars and planets revolved around the sun, but was afraid to publish his theories until after he died.

5. Copernicus’s theories were immediately brought under attack from religious leaders, espe-cially Protestants, as Martin Luther and John Calvin both criticized it. Catholics were milder at first because they did not have a literal interpretation of the Bible though they did offi-cially declare the theory false in 1616. The reaction was slow because of a new star appear-ing in 1572 that seemed to contradict the idea that the heavenly spheres were unchangea-ble and also because of a new comet appearing across the impenetrable spheres in 1577.

6. Brahe’s greatest contribution to the field of astronomy was the data he collected. For twen-ty years, he observed the stars and planets with the naked eye, though he couldn’t make sense out of it. His theory of the universe was part Ptolemaic, part Copernican because he believed that all the planets revolved around the sun and that the entire group of sun and planets revolved around the earth-moon system.

7. Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion were that the orbits of the planets around the sun are elliptical rather than circular, that the planets do not move in a constant speed in their orbits, and that the time a planet takes to make its complete orbit is related to its distance from the sun. He proved all of these mathematically.

8. Kepler’s theories disproved Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s by mathematically showing that the planets revolved around the sun and how they revolved around the sun.

9. Galileo’s greatest achievement was the elaboration and consolidation of the modern expe-rimental method that allowed for scientists to conduct experiments rather than speculate about them. The traditional religious and theological world-view, which rested on estab-lished authority, was giving way to the scientific method and was felt in places other than science. The method was also extensible.

10. Galileo disproved Aristotelian physics by showing that all objects have a uniform accelera-tion in a vacuum rather than the heavier ones fall faster. He also formulated the law of inertia, which states that rest was not the natural state of objects but rather an object continues in motion forever unless stopped by some external force. Aristotle believed that an object only moved when someone or something moved it.

11. The events of Galileo’s theories paralleled other scientists’ conflicts within the church by that he was condemned by them. The scientists who did not believe in Aristotle and Ptole-my’s views and instead believed Copernicus’s were going against authority and were chal-lenging the Pope. They changed the views that Earth was not at the center of the universe and that the universe was infinite, questioning the validity of heaven. Galileo was tried for heresy by the papal Inquisition and was imprisoned, threatened, and forced to recant his views.

12. Newton unifies the scientific outbreaks of the time by seeking to integrate in a single expla-natory system the astronomy of Copernicus, as fixed by Kepler’s laws, with the physics of Galileo and others. He accomplished this by a set of mathematical laws that explain motions and mechanics. Along with his Three Laws of Motion, he formulated the law of universal gravitation that stated that every body attracts every other body in the universe in a precise mathematical relationship.

13. By the late 1200s, permanent universities with professors and a large student following had been established in western Europe. The universities were supported by society because they trained the people in the services of society. By 1300, philosophy had become an im-portant field, and medieval philosophers developed a limited independence from theolo-gians and a sense of free inquiry, pursued knowledge, and tried to arrange it meaningfully by abstract theories. Science became a minor branch of philosophy, and by the 1300s and 1400s, Italian and European universities had established departments of mathematics, as-tronomy, and physics.

14. Through Renaissance humanism’s endless search for the knowledge of antiquity, Greek ma-thematics was recovery and mixed with European mathematics. Patrons supported mathe-matics. The Age of Exploration spurred the search for better mathematics that could more accurately chart the sailors’ position.

15. Scientists at Gresham College were treated as an honored role in society and they had close ties with top officials of the Royal Navy, leading merchants, and shipbuilders. They were treated with respect because they were to find out how to tell the longitude of ships.

16. Some new inventions that improved navigational problems were the telescope, barometer, thermometer, pendulum clock, microscope, and air pump. These instruments were able to give more accurate observations and allowed for new knowledge.

17. Francis Bacon believed that new knowledge had to be pursued through empirical, experi-mental research and not through speculative guesses. He believed the facts would speak for themselves and that experiments are the only way of gaining new knowledge. He formu-lated the empirical method into empiricism.

18. It was theorized that if empiricism was used by all then not only would more knowledge come in, but it would be practical and useful. Empiricism would bring about greater control over the physical environment and make people rich and nations powerful.

19. Both Bacon and Descartes scorned traditional science and had great faith in the powers of the human mind. However, Descartes was more systematic and mathematical than Bacon and decided to doubt everything that could reasonably be doubted and then, using the same processes of geometry, use deductive reasoning from self-evident principles to ascertain scientific laws. He reduced all substances to mind and matter. Bacon used inductive ob-servations while Descartes used deductive, mathematical rationalism.

20. All the religious authorities of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism opposed the Coper-nican system to different extents. The Catholic church was initially not as hostile as Protes-tant and Jewish religious leaders. After Galileo’s trial in 1633, the Counter-Reformation church became more hostile to science, leading to the decline in science in Italy but not in Catholic France. However, Protestant countries like the Netherlands and Denmark became pro-science. In England after 1630, religious conflicts were so intense that authorities could not impose religious unity on anything, causing science to become independent and neutral of religious debates.

21. The Scientific Revolution went together with the rise of new and expanding international scientific community that had a constant thirst for knowledge. Competition arose out of the scientists’ material and psychological rewards. The Revolution introduced not only new knowledge about nature but also a revolutionary way to find such knowledge in the scientif-ic method. Old, outdated theories were rejected for practical, workable ones. Improve-ments in the techniques of navigation facilitated overseas trade and enriched leading mer-chants.

22. The Revolution did not impact as many people as some might have believed because there was no close link between theoretical science and applied technology, and economic condi-tions were not greatly improved. However, it did start an intellectual revolution that would eventually greatly improve people’s lives.