Scientific Revolution
Last Updated      12/27/2009     1/9/2008      1/7/2008

Giordano Brun
It is winter in Rome.
1600, a new year and the new century are little more than a month old. 
In the Campo di Fiori, a popular square near the heart of the city, a crowd gathers.
They are anxiously awaiting the spectacle of an execution.
Giordano Bruno, philosopher, astronomer, and former Dominican monk, will be burned at the stake. 
A man will burn for his ideas.
Bruno’s books Italian Dialogues, published twenty years earlier, had helped gain him both a reputation as a freethinker.
They also earned himthe unwanted attention of the Inquisition.    
In the first book Bruno proclaimed his support for the intellectually dangerous Copernican model of the solar system.
In the second book Bruno went even further, claiming a “plurality of worlds.”
All the stars we see at night were, he claimed, just like our Sun. 
Each was orbited by a family of planets, and each planet was inhabited by intelligent beings.
Bruno is pushed to the stake, where he is stripped naked.
Alongside him are a small troop of monks.
Once again they ask him to recant his ideas.
Gagged, he can only shake his head.
The torches are lit.

Changes that happened during the industrial Revolution were brought on by a scientific revolution.
1400s, scientists break away from old ideas.
They began to use a scientific method to form and test their hypotheses.
1600s, scientist begin to form organizations to discuss their ideas and research.
Because of this scientific information was spread very quickly.
 


Nicholaus Copernicus
He was a Polish astronomer.
One of the first to use the scientific method.
Copernicus studied the motion of the planets.
1543, he published a book to prove Ptolemy was wrong.
Ptolemy believed that the planets orbited around the Erath.
Copernicus explained that the planets revolve around the sun.
“I CAN easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected.” -- Copernicus

 


Galileo Galilei
He was an Italian astronomer.
1581, entered the University at Pisa to be a doctor.
He switched to mathematics.
1589, appointed professor of Mathematics.
1592, his contract was not renewed because of his scorn for Aristollians.
He then obtained an appointment to the University of Padua in the Republic of Venice in 1592 as chair of mathematics.
He taught geometry, mechanics, and astronomy for the next 18 years.

Motion
While he was at Pisa he had studied motion.
He experimented with decelaration.
He found that regardless of weight descended with the same acceleration.
Distance traveled is porportional to the square of the elapsed time.
“A body moving on a level surface will continue in the same direction at constant speed unless disturbed.”

Inventions
Galileo also invented several objects of great practical interest,
1593, a horsedriven water pump.
1597, a geometric and militaty compass.
1606, a thermometer.
1608, hydrostatic balance.
1609, thermometer.
In 1641 he conceives of the application of the pendulum to clocks.

Telescope
1609, he built his own telescope.
He was able to grind his own lenses.
He increased magnification from 3X to 30X.
He began to study the stars.
He saw craters and mountains on the moon.
He learned the Milky Way Galaxy has a large number of stars.
He learned the sun rotates on its axis.
In 1610, Galileo Galilei spotted Saturn with a telescope that he built.
Galileo’s telescope was four feet long.
The telescope could only magnify distant objects by 20 to 30 times, so Galileo still couldn’t see Saturn very clearly.
In one of his notebooks, Galileo wrote that he was confused because Saturn almost looked like three planets instead of one.
The discovery of the phases of Venus, Jupiter’s moons and sunspots provided support for heliocentrism.
1610, he wrote Starry Messenger.

Edict of 1616
Fom 1613 - 1633, he was criticized by the Roman Catholic Church for teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun.
The notoriuos Edict of 1616, was directed by Pope Paul V.
It forbade Galileo from defending Copernicanism “in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.
It also ordered him to abandon Copernicanism “completely.”
1632, he published the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems ,
Despite the warning by Pope Urban Viii,  the book became the catalyst for a second confrontation with the Church hierarchy.

Inquisition
In 1633, at age 69, Galileo was formally interrogated for 18 days.
On April 30 Galileo confesses that he may have made the Copernican case in the Dialogue too strong
He offers to refute it in his next book.
Unmoved, the Pope decides that Galileo should be imprisoned indefinitely.
Soon after, with a formal threat of torture, Galileo is examined by the Inquisition and sentenced to prison and religious penances.
The sentence is signed by 6 of the 10 inquisitors.
The Inquisition banned all books previously written by Galileo.
They also banned all future books he might write.
In a formal ceremony at a the church of Santa Maria So a Minerva, Galileo abjures his errors.
His initial imprisonment was changed to house arrest in Sienna.

House Arrest
After these tribulations he begins writing his Discourse on Two New Sciences.
The  resulting book being smuggled out in a diplomatic bag and published in the Netherlands..
Galileo's ideas spread all over Europe.
Galileo remained under house arrest, despite many medical problems and a deteriorating state of health.
1642, he died.
In 1992, three hundred and fifty years after his death, the Church officially apologized for condemning Galileo and his scientific research.

 

 

 
Isaac Newton 1643-1727
First Period
1642, Newton born in England on Christmas Day.
1661, enters Trinity College in Cambridge.
1665, the plague forced Newton to leave Cambridge.
He returns to Lincolnshire.
There he began revolutionary advances in optics, physics, and astronomy.

Second Period
From 1665 to 1687 was the highly productive period.
1669, he became Lucasian professor at Cambridge.
Newton's first work as Lucasian Professor was on optics.
Newton was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1672 after donating a reflecting telescope.
In that year he published his first scientific paper on light and color in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Newton's relations with the inuential scientist Robert Hooke deteriorated.
Newton turned away from the Royal Society and mainstream science.
He delayed the publication of a full account of his optical researches until after Hooke's death in 1703.
Newton's Opticks appeared in 1704.
Newton's greatest achievement was his work in physics and celestial mechanics.
This culminated in the theory of universal gravitation.
1687, his results are summarized in his treatise of physics Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
1693, suffers a nervous breakdown.

Principia
1687, Newton published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica or the Principia as it is commonly known.
He explained the theory of gravitation.
It is one of the greatest scientific books ever written.
He explained how objects move through space.

Newton's Laws
1. Free bodies move in straight lines or remain at rest.
2. Force = mass x acceleration.
3. Action = Reaction

The Third Period
Newton retired from research to take up a highly paidgovernment position
Newton was a highly paid government official in London.
He had little further interest in science and mathematics.
1696, he became Warden of the Royal Mint.
1699, he became Master of the Royal Mint.
In 1703, he was elected president of the Royal Society and was re-elected each year until his death.
1708, he was knighted by Queen Anne, the first scientist to be so honored for his work.

Death
1727, Newton died.
His tomb in Westminster Abbey is inscribed with these words: Mortals! Rejoice at so great an ornament to the human race!"
He was the "Father of Physics."
Helped create calculus and the laws that rule the universe.
Today's rocket and space satellite technology is based on his work.




Johannes Keppler
He was a German astronomer.
1609, announced that there were laws that regulated the movement of planets.
First two laws of planetary motion.
    1. Planets move along ellipses with the Sun at one focus.
    2. The line from the Sun to the planet covers equal areas in equal times.
Kepler also suffered persecution at the hands of the Church.
Kepler is considered to be the “founder of physical astronomy”.



 William Harvey
He was an English doctor.
1628, he published his theory on human blood circulation.
He discovered that blood only circulates in one direction through the body.

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
He was a French chemist.
1777, he discovered the nature of combustion.

John Dalton
He was an English chemist.
1803, he announced the atomic theory.

Maria Mitchell
She was an American astronomer.
1847, she discovered a new comet.

Charles Darwin
He was an English biologist.
1858, he advanced the theory on development of plants and animals.

Gregor Mendel
He was an English biologist.
1866, he experimented and discovered the principles of heredity.

Louis Pasteur
He was a French doctor.
1876, he advanced the theory that germs cause disease.
1885, he successfully vaccinated against rabies.

Pierre and Marie Curie
They were French chemists.
1898, they discovered radium and polonium.

Bibliography
Greenblatt, Miriam, and Lemmo, Peter. Human Heritage A World History. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

The Roots of Conflict: Science and Religion Before Divorce. http://www.ucpress.edu/books/chapters/10946.ch01.pdf

Images
Copernicus, Nicholas from Macmillan Science Library: Space Sciences. http://www.bookrags.com/research/copernicus-nicholas-spsc-02/

Johannes Kepler 1571-1630. April 1999. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Kepler.html.