Scientific Revolution
Salina M. 1st period
What is the Scientific Revolution? What was the change?
The Scientific Revolution was a major change in European thought. It was a new way of thinking about the natural world. The Scientific Revolution changed the way people thought about the physical world around them. In the beginning, they believed in the Ptolemy's geocentric theory which was the Earth being at the orbital center instead of the sun. As time went by, astronomers and mathematicians such as Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus kept studying on this "geocentric theory" and all had similar conclusions. Eventually scholars and astronomers came to their senses and saw that the heliocentric theory was correct unlike the geocentric theory.
Causes
The Scientific Revolution first started with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' book. This book introduced a new idea of a heliocentric model of the universe. Many people & scholars felt that this way was wrong because it went against the Church and Ptolemy. Some even felt disrespected. This caused lots of commotion between the people that believed either in the heliocentric model or the geocentric model. Even through all that, as the time went by people, scholars, astronomers, mathematicians, etc. finally came to their senses and listened to what others thought about the earth and how everything works and came to conclusions that the Sun is actually centered in the middle instead of the Earth.
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a polish astronomer who studied in Italy. In 1543, he published "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres." There was two conclusions in his book. One conclusion was that the universe was heliocentric or sun-centered, the Earth is only one of several planets revolving around the sun. After this, this marked the start of modern science & astronomy. Most scholars rejected his theory because it went against Ptolemy, the Church and because it made it seem like the Earth was rotating.
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer who built upon the scientific foundations laid by Copernicus and Kepler. He put together the first telescope which let him to see mountains on the moon and fiery spots on the sun. He also noticed 4 moons rotating around Jupiter, just like Copernicus said the Earth rotated the sun. He also found that objects fall of the same speed regardless of weight. All of this caused a huge commotion, other scholars also went against him as well because he opposed Ptolemy's theory. Not only the scholars, but The Church went against him too. When he was threatened with death before the Inquisition in 1633, he took back what he said even though he knew that the Earth moved. He was then out under house arrest and wasn't allow to publish his ideas.
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was first Tyco Brahe's assistant. Keppler was a German astronomer and mathematician. He used Brahe's data and information to calculate the orbits of the planets revolving around the sun. Kepler's calculations also showed that the planets moved in oval shaped orbits and not perfect circles, as Ptolemy and Copernicus believed. Kepler's finding helped explain the paths followed by non-made satellites today.
Impacts on Society
The Scientific Revolution has impacted us in many ways. The Scientific Revolution completely gave us a new way of thinking, including with the Scientific Method. It also caused for many advances and lots of new discoveries with technology that help us today.