All Topics  
Scientific revolution

 

 

 

 

 

Scientific revolution


 
 


The period, which no historians of scienceHistory of science Overview

Science is a body of empirical and theoretical knowledge, produced by a global community of researchers, making use of specific te...
 would ever literally refer to as a revolution, can only in the crudest fashion be estimated at having begun around 1543, the year in which Nicolaus CopernicusNicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who provided the first modern formulation of a heliocentric theory of the solar syste...
 published his De revolutionibus orbium coelestiumDe revolutionibus orbium coelestium

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, first printed in 1543 in Nuremberg, is the seminal work on heliocentric theory and ...
(On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and Andreas Vesalius published his De humani corporis fabricaDe humani corporis fabrica

De humani corporis fabrica libri septem is a textbook of human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius in 1543....
(On the Fabric of the Human body). As with many historical demarcations, historians of science disagree about its boundaries. Although the period is commonly dated to the 16th and 17th centuries, some see elements contributing to the revolution as early as the middle agesMiddle Ages

The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three "ages": the clas...
, and finding its last stages in chemistryChemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale, dealing primarily with collections of atoms ....
 and biologyBiology

Biology is the branch of science dealing with the study of life....
 in the 18th and 19th centuries. There is general agreement, however, that the intervening period saw a fundamental transformation in scientific ideas in physicsFacts About Physics

Physics , the most fundamental physical science, is concerned with the underlying principles of the natural world....
, astronomyAstronomy

Astronomy is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere ....
, and biologyBiology

Biology is the branch of science dealing with the study of life....
, in institutions supporting scientific investigation, and in the more widely held picture of the universe. As a result, the scientific revolution is commonly viewed as a foundation and origin of modern science. The "Continuity ThesisContinuity thesis

In the history of ideas, the continuity thesis is the hypothesis that there was no radical discontinuity between the intelle...
" is the opposing view that there was no radical discontinuity between the development of science in the Middle AgesMiddle Ages Summary

The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three "ages": the clas...
 and later developments in the RenaissanceRenaissance

In the traditional view, the Renaissance was understood as a historical age in Europe that followed the Middle Ages and ...
 and early modern periodEarly modern period

The early modern period is a term initially used by historians to refer mainly to the period roughly from 1500 to 1800 in We...
.

Significance of the Revolution


The Scientific Revolution of the late Renaissance was significant in establishing a base for many modern sciences as well as challenging the power of the Church. J. D. Bernal believed that “the renaissance enabled a scientific revolution which let scholars look at the world in a different light. Religion, superstition, and fear were replaced by reason and knowledge”. Despite their challenge to Church dogma, however, many notable figures in the Scientific Revolution - Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and even Galileo - remained devout in their faith. The new spirit of inquiry is captured in the quote attributed to Galileo, "The Bible tells us how to go to the heavens, not how the heavens go."

This period saw a fundamental transformation in scientific ideas across physics, astronomy, and biology, in institutions supporting scientific investigation, and in the more widely held picture of the universe. Brilliant minds started to question all manners of things and it was this questioning that lead to the Scientific Revolution, which in turn formed the foundations of all modern sciences. Many of these new ideas contradicted previous ideas that had been supported by the church. In 1949 Herbet Butterfield wrote that “when theology became subordinate to science meaningful human advancement became a possibility”. The Scientific Revolution led to the establishment of several modern sciences, as well as the understanding that the church was also fallible.

Many contemporary writers and modern historians claim that there was a revolutionary change in world view. In 1611 the English poet, John DonneJohn Donne

John Donne was a Jacobean poet and preacher, the representative of the so-called metaphysical poets of the period, though t...
, wrote:

Mid-twentieth century historian Herbert ButterfieldHerbert Butterfield

Herbert Butterfield was a British historian and philosopher of history who is remembered chiefly for a slim volume entitled ...
 was less disconcerted, but nevertheless saw the change as fundamental:

More recently, sociologist and historian of science Steven ShapinSteven Shapin

Steven Shapin is a historian and sociologist of science....
 opened his book, The Scientific Revolution, with the paradoxical statement: "There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it." Although historians of science continue to debate the exact meaning of the term, and even its validity, the Scientific Revolution still remains a useful concept to interpret the many changes in science.

Ancient and medieval background


The scientific revolution was built upon the foundation of ancient GreekAncient Greece

Ancient Greece is the period in Greek history which lasted for around one thousand years and ended with the rise of Christia...
 and HellenisticHellenistic civilization

The term Hellenistic was established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to refer to the spreading of Greek cultu...
 learning, as it had been elaborated and further developed by Roman/Byzantine scienceByzantine science

Byzantine science played an important role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and to Renaissanc...
 followed by medieval Islamic scienceIslamic science

Islamic science is science in the context of traditional religious ideas of Islam, including its ethics and philosophy....
 and the schools and universitiesUniversity

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees at all levels in a variety o...
 of medieval EuropeMiddle Ages

The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three "ages": the clas...
. Though it had evolved considerably over the centuries, this "Aristotelian traditionAristotelianism

Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle....
" was still the dominant intellectual framework in 16th and 17th century Europe.


Key ideas from this period, which would be transformed fundamentally during the scientific revolution, include:
  • AristotleAristotle

    Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great....
    's cosmology which placed the Earth at the center of a spherical cosmosCosmos Overview

    In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system....
    , with a hierarchical order to the Universe. The terrestrial and celestial regions were made up of different elements which had different kinds of natural movement.
    • The terrestrial region, according to Aristotle, consisted of concentric spheres of the four elements—earthEarth (classical element)

      Earth is one of the four classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science....
      , waterWater (classical element)

      Water is one of the four classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science....
      , airAir (classical element)

      Air is one of the classical elements....
      , and fireFire (classical element)

      Fire has been important to all peoples of the earth, and it is rich in spiritual tradition. ...
      . All bodies naturally moved in straight lines until they reached the sphere appropriate to their elemental composition—their natural place. All other terrestrial motions were non-natural, or violent.
    • The celestial region was made up of the fifth element, AetherAether (classical element)

      Aether is a concept used in ancient and medieval science as a substance....
      , which was unchanging and moved naturally with circular motion. In the Aristotelian tradition, astronomical theories sought to explain the observed irregular motion of celestial objects through the combined effects of multiple uniform circular motions.


  • The Ptolemaic model of planetary motion: PtolemyPtolemy

    Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy, was a Greek-speaking geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who liv...
    's AlmagestAlmagest

    Almagest is the Latin form of the Arabic name of an astronomical treatise proposing the complex motions of the stars and...
    demonstrated that geometrical calculations could compute the exact positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets in the future and in the past, and showed how these computational models were derived from astronomical observations. As such they formed the model for later astronomical developments. The physical basis for Ptolemaic models invoked layers of spherical shellsCelestial spheres

    The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, are the fundamental element of the geocentric, Ptolemaic system of cosmology...
    , though the most complex models were inconsistent with this physical explanation.

New approaches to nature

Historians of the Scientific Revolution traditionally maintain that its most important changes were in the way in which scientific investigation was conducted, as well as the philosophy underlying scientific developments. Among the main changes are the mechanical philosophyMechanism (philosophy)

In philosophy, mechanism is a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes....
, the chemical philosophyPhilosophy of chemistry

The philosophy of chemistry considers the methodology and underlying assumptions of the science of chemistry....
, empiricismEmpiricism

In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience....
, and the increasing role of mathematics.

The mechanical philosophy


Aristotle recognized four kinds of causes, of which the most important was the "final cause". The final cause was the aim, goal, or purpose of something. Thus, the final cause of rain was to let plants grow. Until the scientific revolution, it was very natural to see such goals in nature. The world was inhabited by angels and demons, spirits and souls, occult powers and mystical principles. Scientists spoke about the 'soul of a magnet' as easily as they spoke about its velocity.

The rise of the so-called "mechanical philosophy" put a stop to this. The mechanists, of whom the most important one was René DescartesRené Descartes

Ren Descartes, also known as Cartesius, was a noted French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist....
, rejected all goals, emotion and intelligence in nature. In this view the world consisted of particles of matter -- which lacked all active powers and were fundamentally inert -- with motion being caused by direct physical contact. Where nature had previously been imagined to be like an active entity, the mechanical philosophers viewed nature as following natural, physical laws. But so did the anti-mechanist scientists such as Newton, and Descartes held the teleological principle that God conserved the amount of motion in the universe. As the American historian and philosopher of science Tom Kuhn pointed out in 1962:
"Gravity, interpreted as an innate attraction between every pair of particles of matter, was an occult quality in the same sense as the scholastics' "tendency to fall" had been....By the mid eighteenth century that interpretation had been almost universally accepted, and the result was a genuine reversion (which is not the same as a retrogression) to a scholastic standard. Innate attractions and repulsions joined size, shape, position and motion as physically irreducible primary properties of matter.“ And Newton had also specifically attributed the inherent power of inertia to matter, against the mechanist thesis that matter has no inherent powers. But whereas Newton vehemently denied gravity was an inherent power of matter, his collaborator Roger Cotes made gravity also an inherent power of matter, as set out in his famous Preface to the Principia's 1713 second edition which he edited, and contra Newton himself. And it was Cotes's interpretation of gravity rather than Newton's that came to be accepted. Thus on this analysis mechanism was roundly overthrown by the Newtonian restoration of scholastic and Aristotelian metaphysics.

The chemical philosophy


ChemistryChemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale, dealing primarily with collections of atoms ....
, and its antecedent alchemyAlchemy Overview

Alchemy refers to both an early form of the investigation of nature and an early philosophical and spiritual discipline, bot...
, became an increasingly important aspect of scientific thought in the course of the sixteenth16th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600....
 and seventeenth17th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700 in the Gregorian ...
 centuries. The importance of chemistry is indicated by the range of important scholars who actively engaged in chemical research. Among them were the astronomerAstronomer

An astronomer or astrophysicist is a person whose area of interest is astronomy or astrophysics....
 Tycho BraheTycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe , was a Danish nobleman best known today as an early astronomer, though in his...
, the chemical physicianPhysician

A physician is a person who practices biological medicine....
 ParacelsusParacelsus

Paracelsus was an alchemist, physician, astrologer, and general occultist....
, and the EnglishEngland

England is the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom....
 philosophers Robert BoyleRobert Boyle

The Honourable Robert Boyle was an Irish natural philosopher noted for his work in physics and chemistry....
 and Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton

[[[Old Style and New Style dates|OS]]: [[25 December]] [[1642]] [[20 March]] [[1727]]] was an [[England|English]] [[physics|physicist,]]...
.

Unlike the mechanical philosophy, the chemical philosophy stressed the active powers of matter, which alchemists frequently expressed in terms of vital or active principles – of spirits operating in nature.

Empiricism


The Aristotelian scientific tradition's primary mode of interacting with the world was through observation and searching for "natural" circumstances. It saw what we would today consider "experiments" to be contrivances which at best revealed only contingent and un-universal facts about nature in an artificial state. Coupled with this approach was the belief that rare events which seemed to contradict theoretical models were "monsters", telling nothing about nature as it "naturally" was. During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in respect to nature, the value of evidence, experimental or observed, led towards a scientific methodScientific method

Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting...
ology in which empiricismEmpiricism

In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience....
 played a large, but not absolute, role.

Under the influence of scientists and philosophers like Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) and Francis Bacon, an empirical tradition was developed by the 16th century. The Aristotelian belief of natural and artificial circumstances was abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentExperiment

In the scientific method, an experiment , is a set of actions and observations, performed in the context of solving a partic...
ation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. Bacon's philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature – to abandon assumption and to attempt to simply observe with an open mind – was in strict contrast with the earlier, AristotelianAristotle

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great....
 approach of deductionDeductive reasoning

In traditional Aristotelian logic, Deductive reasoning is reasoning in which the conclusion is necessitated by, or reach...
, by which analysis of "known facts" produced further understanding. In practice, of course, many scientists (and philosophers) believed that a healthy mix of both was needed—the willingness to question assumptions, yet also interpret observations assumed to have some degree of validity.

At the end of the scientific revolution the organic, qualitative world of book-reading philosophers had been changed into a mechanical, mathematical world to be known through experimental research. Though it is certainly not true that Newtonian science was like modern science in all respects, it conceptually resembled ours in many ways—much more so than the Aristotelian science of a century earlier. Many of the hallmarks of modern science, especially in respect to the institution and profession of science, would not become standard until the mid-19th century.

Mathematization


Scientific knowledge, according to the Aristotelians, was concerned with establishing true and necessary causes of things. To the extent that medieval natural philosophers used mathematical techniques, they limited mathematics to theoretical analyses of local motion and other aspects of change. The actual measurement of a physical quantity, and the comparison of that measurement to a value computed on the basis of theory, was largely limited to the mathematical disciplines of astronomyAstronomy Summary

Astronomy is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere ....
 and opticsOptics

Optics is a branch of physics that describes the behavior and properties of light and the interaction of light with matter....
 in Europe,.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, European scientists began increasingly applying quantitative measurements to the measurement of physical phenomena on the Earth. Galileo maintained strongly that mathematics provided a kind of necessary certainty that could be compared to God's: "with regard to those few [mathematical propositions] which the human intellect does understand, I believe its knowledge equals the Divine in objective certainty."

Emergence of the revolution


Since the time of VoltaireVoltaire

Franois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and p...
, some observers have considered that a revolutionary change in thought, called in recent times a scientific revolution, took place around the year 1600; that is, that there were dramatic and historically rapid changes in the ways in which scholars thought about the physical world and studied it. Science, as it is treated in this account, is essentially understood and practiced in the modernModernity

Modernity is a term used to describe the condition of being "modern"....
 world; with various "other narratives" or alternate ways of knowing omitted.

Alexandre KoyréAlexandre Koyré

Alexandre Koyr? , sometimes anglicised as Alexander Koir?, was a French philosopher of Russian origin who wrote on his...
 coined the term and definition of 'The Scientific Revolution' in 1939, which later influenced the work of traditional historians A. Rupert Hall and J.D. Bernal and subsequent historiographyFacts About Historiography

Historiography has a number of related meanings....
 on the subject (Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution, 1996). To some extent, this arises from different conceptions of what the revolution was; some of the rancor and cross-purposes in such debates may arise from lack of recognition of these fundamental differences. But it also and more crucially arises from disagreements over the historical facts about different theories and their logical analysis, e.g. Did Aristotle's dynamics deny the principle of inertia or not? Did science become mechanistic?

Scientific developments

Key ideas and people that emerged from the 16th and 17th centuries:

  • Nicolaus CopernicusNicolaus Copernicus Summary

    Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who provided the first modern formulation of a heliocentric theory of the solar syste...
     (1473–1543) published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, which advanced the heliocentric theory of cosmologyCosmology

    Cosmology, from the Greek:??sµ?????a is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity's place in it...
    .
  • Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) published De Humani Corporis FabricaDe humani corporis fabrica

    De humani corporis fabrica libri septem is a textbook of human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius in 1543....
    (On the Fabric of the Human Body) (1543), which discredited GalenGalen Summary

    Greek: Ga?????, Latin: Claudius Galenus of Pergamum , better known in English as Galen, was an ancient Greek phy...
    's views. He found that the circulation of blood resolved from pumping of the heart. He also assembled the first human skeleton from cutting open cadavers.
  • William GilbertFacts About William Gilbert

    William Gilbert was born May 24, 1544, Colchester, England and died November 30, 1603, in London, probably of the plague....
     (1544–1603) published On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on the Great Magnet the EarthDe Magnete

    De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure is a scientific work published in 1600 by the English ...
    in 1600, which laid the foundations of a theory of magnetismFacts About Magnetism

    In physics, magnetism is one of the phenomena by which materials exert an attractive or repulsive force on other materials....
     and electricityElectricity

    Electricity is a general term for the variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge....
    .
  • Tycho BraheTycho Brahe

    Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe , was a Danish nobleman best known today as an early astronomer, though in his...
     (1546–1601) made extensive and more accurate naked eye observations of the planets in the late 1500s. These became the basic data for Kepler's studies.
  • Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) published Novum OrganumNovum Organum

    The Novum Organum is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon published in 1620....
    in 1620, which outlined a new system of logicLogic

    Logic, from Classical Greek ?????, originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, is most often said to be the stud...
     based on the process of reductionReduction (philosophy)

    Reduction is the process by which one object, property, concept, theory, etc., is shown to be entirely dispensable in favor ...
    , which he offered as an improvement over AristotleAristotle

    Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great....
    's philosophicalPhilosophy

    Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphys...
     process of syllogismSyllogism

    A syllogism , usually the categorical syllogism, is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition is inferred f...
    . This contributed to the development of what became known as the scientific methodScientific method

    Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting...
    .
  • Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei

    Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, astronomer, astrologer and philosopher who is closely associated with the scienti...
     (1564–1642) improved the telescopeTelescope

    The word "telescope" usually refers to optical telescopes, but there are telescopes for most of the spectrum of electromagne...
    , with which he made several important astronomical discoveries, including the four largest moonsFacts About Galilean moons

    The Galilean moons are the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo Galilei....
     of JupiterJupiter

    Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest within the solar system....
    , the phases of VenusVenus

    Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days....
    , and the rings of SaturnSaturn

    Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun....
    , and made detailed observations of sunspotSunspot

    A sunspot is a region on the Sun's surface that is marked by a lower temperature than its surroundings and intense magnetic...
    s. He developed the laws for falling bodies based on pioneering quantitative experiments which he analyzed mathematically.
  • Johannes KeplerJohannes Kepler

    Johannes Kepler , a key figure in the scientific revolution, was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and an earl...
     (1571–1630) published the first two of his three laws of planetary motionKepler's laws of planetary motion

    Johannes Kepler's primary contributions to astronomy/astrophysics were his three laws of planetary motion....
     in 1609.
  • William HarveyWilliam Harvey

    William Harvey was a medical doctor who is credited with first correctly describing, in exact detail, the properties of b...
     (1578–1657) demonstrated that blood circulates, using dissections and other experimental techniques.
  • René DescartesRené Descartes

    Ren Descartes, also known as Cartesius, was a noted French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist....
     (1596–1650) published his Discourse on the Method in 1637, which helped to establish the scientific methodFacts About Scientific method

    Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting...
    .
  • Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) constructed powerful single lens microscopes and made extensive observations that he published around 1660, opening up the micro-world of biology.
  • Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton

    [[[Old Style and New Style dates|OS]]: [[25 December]] [[1642]] [[20 March]] [[1727]]] was an [[England|English]] [[physics|physicist,]]...
     (1643–1727) built upon the work of Kepler and Galileo. His development of the calculusFacts About Calculus

    Calculus is a central branch of mathematics, developed from algebra and geometry....
     opened up new applications of the methods of mathematics to science. He showed that an inverse square law for gravity explained the elliptical orbits of the planets, and advanced the law of universal gravitationNewton's law of universal gravitation

    Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation states the following:...
    . Newton taught that scientific theory should be coupled with rigorous experimentation, which became the keystone of modern science.

Theoretical developments


Before the 16th century the Church’s power was paramount, the Pope was more powerful than any king, queen, or nobility. Until the beginning of the 16th century the Church had a firm grip on any discoveries that were made. The church had developed laws to prevent it from being contradicted. The church controlled spiritual and intellectual life. The 16th Century saw a new way of thinking develop called Empiricism. Empiricism was a significant intellectual revolution. This way of thinking was not based on any external authority. Although this new thinking lead to great discoveries the church viewed it as heresy. Some people were forced to recant but this was the best case scenario for someone spreading contradictory ideas. Andreas Vesalius was forced to take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Galileo Galilee was threatened with torture, faced a heretical inquisition, spent many years in jail, and was finally forced to recant. The Church had a firm hold of people’s intellectual and spiritual life and was a major factor in limiting people’s knowledge.

In 1543 Copernicus' work on the heliocentric model of the solar system was published, in which he tried to prove that the sun was the center of the universe. This was at the behest of the Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church is the Christian Church in full communion with the Pope, the Bishop of Ro...
, as part of the Catholic Reformation's efforts to create a more accurate calendarCalendar

A calendar is a system for naming periods of time, typically days....
 to govern its activities. For almost two millennia, the geocentric modelGeocentric model

In astronomy, the geocentric model of the universe is the theory that the Earth is at the center of the universe and the Sun...
 had been accepted by all but a few astronomers. The idea that the earth moved around the sun, as advocated by Copernicus, was to most of his contemporaries preposterous. It contradicted not only the virtually unquestioned Aristotelian philosophyPhilosophy

Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphys...
, but also common senseCommon sense

One meaning of the term common sense on a strict construction of the term, is what people in common would agree; that which...
.

Johannes Kepler and Galileo gave the theory credibility. Kepler was an astronomer who, using the accurate observations of Tycho BraheTycho Brahe Summary

Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe , was a Danish nobleman best known today as an early astronomer, though in his...
, proposed that the planets move around the sun not in circular orbits, but in elliptical ones. Together with his other laws of planetary motionKepler's laws of planetary motion

Johannes Kepler's primary contributions to astronomy/astrophysics were his three laws of planetary motion....
, this allowed him to create a model of the solar system that was an improvement over Copernicus' original system. Galileo's main contributions to the acceptance of the heliocentric system were his mechanics, the observations he made with his telescope, as well as his detailed presentation of the case for the system. Using an early theory of inertiaInertia

The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental laws of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of ma...
, Galileo could explain why rocks dropped from a tower fall straight down even if the earth rotates. His observations of the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the spots on the sun, and mountains on the moon all helped to discredit the Aristotelian philosophy and the PtolemaicPtolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy, was a Greek-speaking geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who liv...
 theory of the solar system. Through their combined discoveries, the heliocentric system gained support, and at the end of the 17th century it was generally accepted by astronomers.

Kepler's laws of planetary motion and Galileo's mechanics culminated in the work of Isaac Newton. His laws of motionNewton's laws of motion

Newton's Laws of Motion are three physical laws which provide relationships between the forces acting on a body and the moti...
 were to be the solid foundation of mechanics; his law of universal gravitation combined terrestrial and celestial mechanics into one great system that seemed to be able to describe the whole world in mathematical formulaFormula

In mathematics and in the sciences, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, or a general relation...
e.

Not only astronomyAstronomy Overview

Astronomy is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere ....
 and mechanicsMechanics

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behaviour of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacement...
 were greatly changed. OpticsOptics

Optics is a branch of physics that describes the behavior and properties of light and the interaction of light with matter....
, for instance, was revolutionized by people like Robert HookeRobert Hooke

Robert Hooke, FRS was an English polymath who played an important role in the scientific revolution, through both experimen...
, Christiaan HuygensChristiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens , was a Dutch mathematician and physicist; born in The Hague as the son of Constantijn Huygens....
, René DescartesRené Descartes

Ren Descartes, also known as Cartesius, was a noted French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist....
 and, once again, Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton

[[[Old Style and New Style dates|OS]]: [[25 December]] [[1642]] [[20 March]] [[1727]]] was an [[England|English]] [[physics|physicist,]]...
, who developed mathematical theories of light as either waves (Huygens) or particles (Newton). Similar developments could be seen in chemistryChemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale, dealing primarily with collections of atoms ....
, biologyBiology Overview

Biology is the branch of science dealing with the study of life....
 and other sciences, although their full development into modern science was delayed for a century or more.

Contrary views


Not all historians of science are agreed that there was any revolution in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

Another contrary view has been recently proposed by Arun Bala in his dialogicalFacts About Dialogue

A dialogue is a reciprocal conversation between two or more persons....
 history of the birth of modern science. Bala argues that the changes involved in the Scientific Revolution – the mathematical realistPhilosophy of mathematics

Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implicati...
 turn, the mechanicalMechanics

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behaviour of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacement...
 philosophyPhilosophy

Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphys...
, the corpuscular (atomic) philosophyAtomism

In natural philosophy, atomism is the theory that all the objects in the universe are composed of very small, indestructible...
, the central role assigned to the Sun in Copernican heliocentrismCopernican heliocentrism

Sorry, no overview for this topic
 - have to be seen as rooted in multiculturalMulticulturalism

Multiculturalism is an ideology advocating that society should consist of, or at least allow and include, distinct cultural ...
 influences on Europe. Islamic scienceIslamic science

Islamic science is science in the context of traditional religious ideas of Islam, including its ethics and philosophy....
 gave the first exemplar of a mathematical realist theory with Alhazen's Book of OpticsBook of Optics

The Book of Optics was a seven volume treatise on optics, physics, mathematics, anatomy and psychology written by Iraqi...
in which physical light rays traveled along mathematical straight lines. The swift transfer of Chinese mechanical technologiesHistory of science and technology in China

The history of science and technology in China is both long and rich with many contributions to science and technology....
 in the medieval era shifted European sensibilities to perceive the world in the image of a machineMachine

A machine is any mechanical or organic device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of t...
. The Indian number systemHindu-Arabic numeral system

The Hindu-Arabic numeral system is a positional decimal numeral system documented from the 9th century....
, which developed in close association with atomism in IndiaAtomism

In natural philosophy, atomism is the theory that all the objects in the universe are composed of very small, indestructible...
, carried implicitly a new mode of mathematical atomic thinking. And the heliocentric theoryHeliocentrism Summary

In astronomy, heliocentrism is the theory that the Sun is at the center of the Universe and/or the Solar System....
 which assigned central status to the sun, as well as Newton’s concept of forceForce

In physics, force is that which changes or tends to change the state of rest or motion of a body....
 acting at a distance, were rooted in ancient Egyptian religious ideas associated with HermeticismHermeticism

Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegis...
. Bala argues that by ignoring such multiculturalMulticulturalism

Multiculturalism is an ideology advocating that society should consist of, or at least allow and include, distinct cultural ...
 impacts we have been led to a EurocentricEurocentrism

Eurocentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European concerns, culture and values at the ex...
 conception of the Scientific Revolution .

See also


Revolutions

  • RevolutionRevolution

    A revolution is a drastic change that usually occurs relatively quickly....
    • British Agricultural RevolutionBritish Agricultural Revolution

      The British Agricultural Revolution describes a period of agricultural development in Britain between the 16th century and t...
      /Neolithic RevolutionNeolithic Revolution

      The Neolithic Revolution is the term for the first agricultural revolution, describing the transition from hunting and...
    • Scientific lawScientific law

      A scientific law, is a law-like statement that generalizes across a set of conditions....
    • Industrial RevolutionIndustrial Revolution

      The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th cen...
    • Digital RevolutionDigital Revolution

      The Digital Revolution is the general phenomenon surrounding the change from passive mass-media linear communications, like ...
    • Chemical RevolutionFacts About Chemical Revolution

      The Chemical Revolution denotes the reformulation of chemistry based on the Law of Conservation of Matter and the oxygen the...