The “Scientific Revolution”

Science Challenges the Old Ideas

Science and the Enlightenment

Scientific advances and Enlightenment contributions came from all

Factors That Led To The Scientific Revolution

• Renaissance (1400 - 1800)– The invention of the printing press - ideas could be spread

quickly and cheaply.– The revival of classical learning - scholars went back to the

original Greek and Roman texts. These reminded scientists to observe nature closely and make theories that explained the world.

– The Church was criticized for the first time - people challenged old ideas and established authorities. In the Reformation the Catholic Church lost its hold over many countries, as well as universities and education. People became less willing to accept the Church's rulings about issues such as dissection.

– Voyages of exploration - people traveled more and had greater contact with other societies. New ideas and attitudes were brought into Europe. New drugs were introduced, such as quinine, which could be used against malaria.

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Renaissance Scholarship and Classical Disagreements

• This view began to be challenged with the emergence of the Renaissance

• Renaissance humanists mastered not only Latin, but also Greek which made available to them new writings of Galen, Ptolemy, and Archimedes but also Plato and the pre-Socratics

• This led humanists to recognize that the unquestioned authorities of the Middle Ages, Aristotle and Galen, had been contradicted by other thinkers

• This stimulated the desire to discover which school of thought was the correct one with the result sometimes leading to the complete rejection of the classical authorities

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Artists and Close Observation of

Nature• Renaissance artists have been also credited with

making an impact upon scientific study - desire to imitate nature led them to rely on a close observation of nature

• With their accurate renderings of rocks, plants, animals, and human anatomy, they established new standards for the study of natural phenomena

• Moreover, the “scientific” study of the problems of perspective and correct anatomical proportions led to new insights as a Renaissance artist declared, “No painter can paint well without a thorough knowledge of geometry.”

Renaissance

• Study of art, architecture not separate from study of science

• Artists learned anatomy in order to paint the body

Architecture

• Mathematics, physics crucial to great architecture

• Also used in engineering achievements of the time

Artists• Experimented with chemistry of

paints, nature of light

• Used math to create compositions of perfect balance

Science and religion

• Combined to produce great artistic achievements of Renaissance

• Most art, architecture dedicated to glory of God

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Science and Art

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Reformation

• Reformation and Religious Conflicts The printing press increased communication and the standardization of knowledge.

• Religious conflicts led to an increase in toleration.

• There was skepticism toward religion, thus, an atmosphere where ideas could be more freely explored.

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Early Modern Technological Innovations

• The solving of technical problems also stimulated the growth of scientific knowledge

• Many of the technical innovations of the period were accomplished outside the universities by people who placed an emphasis upon practical and not theoretical knowledge

• Either way, the invention of new instruments and machines, for example the microscope and the telescope, made new scientific discoveries possible

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: New Technology

• Technical problems, like calculating how much weight a ship could hold, spurred a movement towards observation and measurement.

• New instruments like the telescope and microscope made fresh observations and discoveries possible.

• Printing spread ideas more quickly than ever before.

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: The New

Mathematics• Rediscovery during the Renaissance of the works of

ancient mathematicians and the influence of Plato• While mathematics was seen as the key to navigation,

military science, and geography, there was also a widespread belief during the Renaissance that mathematics was the key to understanding the nature of things

• Many of the great minds of the period, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, who were all mathematicians, believed that the secrets of nature were written in the language of mathematics

• Lastly, mathematical reasoning was seen as promoting a degree of certainty that was otherwise impossible

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: New Mathematics• The study of mathematics in

the Renaissance contributed to the important role mathematics had in the scientific achievements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

• The great scientists of the day believed that the secrets of nature were written in the language of mathematics.

•New Mathematics Arabic numbers, introduced in the Renaissance, came increasingly into use in the 16th century.

• Signs for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were introduced by Francois Vieta in 1603. This became standardized so all mathematicians used the same signs (printing press).

• Logarithms were introduced by John Napier (Scotland). Logarithms reduced to addition and subtraction the more complex and timely math such as multiplication and long division.

• Analytical Geometry was introduced by Renee Descartes in 1637. This was useful in engineering and military ballistics.

• Calculus was introduced by Newton and Leibnitz in the 1660s. Calculus measures quantifies variations in speed, which is useful for tabulating the motions of planets.

New Mathematics

Causes of Scientific Revolution: National Monarchies

•Monarchs provided money for scientific studies to centralize government, promote trade, and reduce the influence of the church in state affairs.

•In 1484 King John of Portugal appointed mathematicians to work out a method for finding latitude at sea.

•In 1660 King Charles II established the Royal Society and naval laboratories.

•Queen Elizabeth I established Gresham College at Oxford to study navigation and astronomy c. 1597.

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Dawn of Modern Science

Ancient scholars could provide no information about new lands, people, animals

• Age of Exploration led scientists to study natural world more closely

• Other things to be discovered, things unknown to ancients

• Navigators needed more accurate instruments, geographic knowledge

• Scientists examined natural world, found it did not match ancient beliefs

Some Middle Ages scholars sought answers about the natural world from the church. In the mid-1500s, others began to think in new ways.

• Scholars relied on traditional authorities for beliefs about structure of universe

• Geocentric theory, Aristotle– Earth center of universe– Sun, moon, planets revolved

around sun• Ideas upheld by church, accepted

authority for European intellectuals

The Old View• Scholars began to challenge

traditional authorities, 1500s• Scientific Revolution, new way of

thinking• Posed theories, developed

procedures to test ideas• Why open to new ideas?

– Exploration – New lands, new people, new

animals

New Viewpoints

Causes of the Scientific Revolution: Dawn of Modern Science

A Funny Story about Seeing and Knowing

One day I was at the home of a very famous doctor in Venice, where many persons came … to see an anatomical dissection performed by a man. … He was investigating the source and origin of the nerves about which there exists a notorious controversy [in ancient Greek medical texts. Aristotle and Galen (a famous medical writer) believed nerves began in the heart]. The anatomist showed that the … nerves, leaving the brain … extended down the spine and … only a single strand… arrived at the heart. Turning to a gentleman whom he knew to be an [Aristotelian] philosopher … he asked this man whether he was … satisfied that the nerves originated in the brain and not the heart. The philosopher after considering this for a while, answered “You have made me see this matter so plainly and clearly that if Aristotle’s text were not contrary to it, stating clearly that nerves originate in the heart, I should be forced to admit it to be true.”

- Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)

The ScientificRevolution

began duringthe Renaissanceand continuedthrough the 17th and 18th

centuries.

Defining The Scientific Revolution

• The Scientific Revolution began during the Renaissance.

• It was a movement that rejected traditional authority and church teachings in favor of scientific reasoning.

• A new scientific method was developed.

The Scientific Revolution – Two Fundamental ChangesThe Scientific Revolution was about more than just finding the “right”

answers to questions.

Much more importantly the Scientific Revolution was about two fundamental but interrelated changes in the way people understood the world.

1.Change in how people KNOW (epistemology).• Authority vs. Reason

• People gradually become less satisfied with existing sources of “truth” – Aristotle, Bible

• Reason - Deduction vs. Induction• People gradually become more comfortable with the

uncertainty inherent in inductive reasoning

2.Change in how people SEE.• Scientists begin to observe the world more closely• Later scientists begin to experiment on the world

LikeGalileoand his

telescope,scientists

beganto lookand to

prove truths.

Defining the Scientific Revolution: Science and Community

Scientific Revolution established new way of thinking about physical world

• Great advances made in astronomy, physics, biology, chemistry

• Advances influenced developments in arts, architecture

• Impact of Scientific Revolution soon would cause philosophers, scholars to wonder if reason could solve poverty, war, ignorance

Seeing in the Scientific Revolution

Instruments develop to help people SEE the world better and more precisely.

Galileo’s Telescope

Tycho Brahe’s Observatory

Seeing in the Scientific Revolution

Robert Hooke’s Microscope (1670)

Showing in the Scientific Revolution

The power of the PRINTING PRESS to break down established AUTHORITY lies only partially in the speed of reproduction. If you want to give people faith in the value of INDUCTIVE REASONING you have to make them SEE WHAT YOU SEE.

Galileo – Images of Moon Harvey – Images of Circulation

Hooke – Images of Cork Plant