The Scientific Revolution Was Not An Organized Effort

While the Roman Catholic Church believed that the earth was the center of the universe, Nicolaus Copernicus’s discovered that the Earth actually was one of the planets hat revolved around the sun. “For, in the first place, they are so uncertain about the motion of the sun and moon that they cannot establish and observe a constant length even for the tropical year. (Document 1)” The church belief did not make sense because it was wrong. They were going off wrong information that they could not establish a constant year, which confuses people. Nicolaus said that the earth moved around the sun, which made more sense and

Copernicus published "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" in 1543 , sparking off the scientific revolution and a new era of astronomical thought. This theory explains that the sun, not the Earth, is the center of the solar system and planets move in a circular motion around it. This had many social, intellectual and religious made of huis idea. For instance, this theory brought into question the strict reading of the Bible and philosophies of the Catholic Church.

Briefly explain what is meant by the “scientific revolution” that took place in seventeenth century Europe, and how it marked a departure from ancient and medieval philosophy.

Nicholas Copernicus was the first to question the universal truths and teachings of the church. He devised a theory that the earth along with the other planets revolved around the sun. This theory disagreed with Aristotle and the old teachings that the universe revolved around the earth, and that man was the center of the universe.

Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who arose the Heliocentric Theory which caused the scientific revolution. Copernicus discoveries were very important, and impacted science to this day. Copernicus constructed his data from his astronomical observations of sun-centered cosmology. The Heliocentric theory is the belief that the sun is in the center of the universe and all the planets revolve around it. The Heliocentric Theory contradicts The Geocentric. “Copernicus's heliocentric solar system named the sun, rather than the earth, as the center of the solar system”. (http://www.biography.com/).

The geocentric model created by Ptolemy, and the heliocentric model created by Copernicus, had greatly differed in which force of being (the sun or the earth,) was the center of the universe. Ptolemy’s Geocentric

The Scientific Revolution was one of the most revolutionary time periods in human history, because the Catholic Church was tested and the human race was enlighten. Also, during this specific revolution specific scientists and enlighten thinkers contributed heavily to the advancement of human history. This period is explained as modern methods of scientific inquiry being established, and associated with great discoveries of the first modern scientists (Scientific Revolution, n.d.). To truly understand how revolutionary the Scientific Revolution was, the key points should be studied and elaborated. This paper will dive into the major scientist and philosopher during this revolutionary time, and deliver the battle to free minds between the church and science.

Up until the sixteenth century everyone thought that the earth was the center of the universe. People also thought that the sun, stars and other planets simply orbited

One scientist that helped the push the Scientific Revolution forward is Galileo Galilei. His discoveries were the foundation for many others who followed him. One of these discoveries that helped the Scientific Revolution is the telescope. This invention improved on by Galileo allowed scientists to carefully study

Nicolaus Copernicus, a great mathematician, and Astronomer introduced the idea of a heliocentric universe, which now is one of the important movements of the time. Back when he was alive, he harbored this idea away for the fear of the hatred and death his idea would bring upon him. As the church was the power and anything that went against said power was turned away. Hatred, hostility, resentment would fall upon you and worst of all death. Copernicus being the extraordinary brilliant person he was, waited until he was on his deathbed to present his ideas to the world, being as he was dying already he had nothing to fear. His work has inspired and caused many people to now think for themselves, to use their own minds and go out against those

Until Johannes Kepler discovered that the planets in our solar system orbit our sun, this is known as heliocentric. At the same time Kepler was making these detailed recordings Galileo Galilei improved the design and magnification of the telescope. With this improvement Galileo was able to see and record the craters of the moon, phases of Venus, the moons of Jupiter, and sunspots. Along with these discoveries he was also able to theorize that light takes a certain amount of time to travel from one spot to the next as either a wave or a particle, traveling in a measurable uniform speed. Another very significant discovery he proposed was that all objects, no matter the size, density, or shape, fall at the same rate of acceleration. With the inspiration of Galileos discoveries, Kepler was able to design a telescope that would become standard in astronomical

For centuries the world believed in a system formulated by influential astronomer Ptolemy. In the Ptolemaic system the Earth is at the center of all celestial bodies. This theory was widely accepted especially by the Church who held much prominence in Europe. The Catholic Church believed that God formed the earth therefore it should sit at the center of the universe. It wasn't until the 16th century, when a man name Nicolas Copernicus presented a theory which contradicted all that was known in the world of astronomy. Copernicus presented a heliocentric system, in which he placed the sun at the center of the universe, motionless, with the Earth and other planets rotating around it in circular paths modified by epicycles. Thomas S. Kuhn, in his book, The Copernican Revolution, states that “Copernicus, the author of the theory that ultimately deprived the heavens of special power, belonged to the minority group of Renaissance astronomers who did not caste horoscopes” (pg. 94). The Copernican system initially began as a system of minorities, however, as time continued it began to see prominence. Both Johannes Keppler and Galilei Galileo, through their observations and theories began to prove a heliocentric system.

The idea that the Earth was the center of the universe was not challenged until about 1507 when Nicholas Copernicus went to Rome and chaired the mathematics department. He wanted to find out how Earth works so that he can glorify God. His findings, however, contradicted the church’s scriptures, or more specifically, the Bible. Because his work had no backing, he could not prove that his theory was valid and therefore could not confront the Church. His findings were ahead of his time.

One of the many people who contributed to the Scientific Revolution was Nicolaus Copernicus. In 1543 he wrote and published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. This was his proposal of his theory of a sun-centered universe, called a heliocentric. He proposed that the sun was the center of the universe, not the earth, as it was widely accepted to be at the time. He further said that the earth, along with all the other planets in the solar system, revolved around the sun. In his predecessor’s theory, Claudius Ptolemy, it showed that the earth was the center of the universe, and the sun and planets revolved around it. To show this, he made a geocentric model depicting that theory, and it was widely accepted. Meanwhile, Copernicus made a heliocentric model for his theory. It, naturally, showed his idea of a sun-centered universe (Document 1). Lots of people, experts, and especially the church, rejected this revolutionary theory. People simply didn’t want to believe, after years and years of accepting that the center of the universe was themselves, that they, in fact, weren’t. In Europe, all scientific knowledge and religious teaching were heavily based on the ideas and arguments of classical thinkers. They thought that if Ptolemy’s geocentric theory was wrong, then their entire scientific and worldly understanding might be in question. However in the late 1500s, another astronomer, Tycho Brahe, found evidence that supported Copernicus. Brahe constructed an astronomical observatory, and spent years carefully studying and

his role in the Scientific Revolution is often misunderstood. Copernicus is commonly known as the man who introduced the idea of a heliocentric universe. He did very little to proof his claim,. This opened the door allowing scientists like Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and later Newton, to develop as a result of what he proposed. Copernicus’ work was ultimately most significant because it changed the way people used physics and astronomy to understand the universe.