The Scientific Revolution: Hidden Peace In Mathematical Laws

During the seventeenth century, the scientific revolution in Europe was at its peak, changing people’s lives through the new techniques of the scientific method. Citizens of western civilizations had previously used religion as the lens through which they perceived their beliefs and customs in their communities. Before the scientific revolution, science and religion were intertwined, and people were taught to accept religious laws and doctrines without questioning; the Church was the ultimate authority on how the world worked. However, during this revolution, scientists were inspired to learn and understand the laws of the universe had created, a noble and controversial move toward truth seeking. The famous scientists of the time, such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, were known to be natural philosophers, intending to reveal God’s mystery and understand (through proof) the majesty of God. Throughout previous centuries, people had hypothesized how the world and natural phenomenon may work, and new Protestant ideals demanded constant interrogation and examination. Nevertheless, some of these revelations went against the Church’s teachings and authority. If people believed the Church could be wrong, then they could question everything around them, as well. As a result, the introduction of the scientific method, a process by which scientists discovered and proved new theories, was revolutionary because it distinguished what could be proved as real from what was simply

The Scientific Revolution was a time of improvements in medicine, knowledge of the body, and knowledge of the universe. People questioned nature and what was taught by the Church. Sir Issac Newton developed the laws of gravity when an apple fell from a tree, Robert Boyle distinguished between elements and compounds, and Andreas Vesalius made the first accurate detailed study of human anatomy. The most revolutionary theory is seen in Document C. Greek astronomer Ptolemy said that the universe was geocentric, the earth is at the center of the universe. It agreed with what was taught by the Church and was accepted by all. However Copernicus said the universe was heliocentric, the sun is at the center of the universe and the earth revolved around it. The Church was not happy since it went against its teachings, but Galileo set up an astronomical telescope and proved the universe was

Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were

Another important figure in the Scientific Revolution was Galileo Galilei. He was an Italian born professor of mathematics who had a great interest in the workings of the universe. Galileo served as a professor at the University of Padua, and it was during this time that he began to question the accuracy of the Churches representation of the world. Galileo’s approach towards knowledge was much different then the afore mentioned Copernicus. Where as Copernicus presented his finding to the mercy of the church, Galileo wrote his conclusions and left the Roman Catholic Church interpret them as they chose. The very nature of his findings pitted him as an opponent of the church.

"The growth of commerce and industry led to the technological advances, which in turn stimulated, and were stimulated by science.” (p. 403) The European scientific revolution was fueled by the blending of “liberal” and “servile” arts, in other words, science and technology. Because of the European expansion taking place throughout the world, new commerce and industries were advancing, creating the need for new technology and science. The theories and inventions that Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton provided were the fist major advances during the scientific revolution, and perhaps were the most profound.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the world of science became exposed to new scientific discoveries that were not welcomed by the church. For decades, people believed and did everything the Roman Catholic Church told them because there were no documents or no other proof of scientific knowledge to go on. Friendship should be spread through the whole world of learning…(Document 9)” You will learn better if you are friends because you can exchange information and find out more than if you were enemies. The Roman Catholic Church was threatening by the Scientific Revolution because Copernicious’s, Galilei’s, and Newton’s new science discoveries open people minds to change.

This essay will explore parallels between the ideas of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. The scientific revolution describes a time when great changes occurred in the way the universe was viewed, d through the advances of sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enlightenment refers to a movement that grew out of the new scientific ideas of the revolution that occurred in the late seventeenth to eighteenth century. Although both the scientific revolution and enlightenment encapsulate different ideas, the scientific revolution laid the underlying ideological foundations for the enlightenment movement. A number of parallels

The Scientific Revolution was an era where Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei. Nicolaus Copernicus, and Johannes Kepler challenged the status quo, and where many discoveries that would change the way people thought about everything including the universe were made. Before the Scientific Revolution happened, many Europeans only believed in what the church said, but the revolution unveil new answers based on science; totally the opposite of what the church had adopted in earlier years. This period became the foundation of thinking in a different way, and the Enlightenment relied on those new perspectives to expand other theories that would forever change life.

The Scientific Revolution changed society with the birth of “modern science”; it changed the way people thought about the physical world around them. The same spirit of inquiry that fueled the Renaissance, led scientists to question traditional beliefs about the workings of the universe. The conflict all began with Copernicus’ heliocentric model being introduced to the world- going against the Church’s traditional teachings. Nicolaus Copernicus developed the heliocentric model of the universe- stating that the sun is the center, and that other planets revolve around it. Despite his calculations, people disagreed and kept on believing in Ptolemy’s geocentric model.

In the 17th Century, there was much controversy between religion and science. The church supported a single worldview that God’s creation was the center of the universe. The kings and rulers were set in their ways to set the people’s minds to believe this and to never question it. From these ideas, the Enlightenment was bred from the Scientific Revolution.

At its climax the scientific revolution would bring enormous change with the revolutionary contributions made by Isaac Newton. Newton, building on previous works produced the concepts of gravity, and he developed the three laws of motion which could be accurately proved through mathematical calculations. These discoveries about the natural world would serve to mend past uncertainties which in turn gave people real hope. It was the beginning of an end of Europe’s dark times and the birth of many new innovations and developments that were to come in the eighteenth century. It was truly a new age where through reason one could become fully become enlightened.

Prior to Galileo’s time, the Greek and medieval mind, science was a kind of formalism, a means of coordinating data, which had no bearing on the ultimate reality of things. The point was to give order to complicated data, and all that mattered was the hypothesis that was simplest to understand and most convenient. Astronomy and mathematics were regarded as the playthings of intellectuals. They were accounted as having neither philosophical nor theological relevance. There was genuine puzzlement among Churchmen that they had to get involved in a quarrel over planetary orbits.

Galileo played a great role in the Scientific Revolution by bringing classical Greek knowledge back into view and discovering new concepts. Many of these concepts contributed to the revolution of science having a bigger part in the culture of the Western world, compared to a previously religion-based society. Despite his great contribution, Galileo was a cynical opportunist, and this is evident in the way he presents his ideas, beliefs and findings to the public. Often, Galileo was

This era is when the both science and math grew tremendously. Descartes invented analytical geometry, Leibniz invented infinitesimal calculus and Galileo and Isaac Newton built up the Law of Gravity. Along the same time frame Robert Boyle hypothesized “that matter was made up of atoms…” Aton Van Leeuwenhoek “crafted the first microscope” and Robert Hooke, using the microscope fashioned the word “cell” to describe “units of life.” These are but a few that contributed to the growths during the Baroque Era. The new science innovations and ways of thinking went from Greek standards and church doctrines to analyzing physical laws and nature. At one time, the universe revolved around the earth, whereas Galileo announced that it was incorrect

The scientific revolution was one of the greatest times in the 16th century and its ideals have proved to last to this very day. The great minds of the scientific revolution brought forth new concepts and vastly complex while each one is rooted in a basic fundamental. Some of these ideas and fundamentals were of the outside world, aka space, the planet and the stars, motion, and physics. One of the best minds of this time was, of course, Galileo Galilei. This great astronomer was a marvel at his work, he introduced controversial concepts that the church did not accept but those that he believed were to be true. Written by Galileo himself, this letter to the Grand Duchess professed his great discoveries and how they changed old ideas and