SR Foldable


 Fold sheet of paper hot dog style, then into thirds
 Label boxes
 Causes of SR
 Nicolaus Copernicus
 Ptolemaic (Geocentric)
 Copernican (Heliocentric)
 Tycho Brahe/ Johannes Kepler
 Galileo Galilei
 Sir Isaac Newton
 Francis Bacon
 Rene Descartes
 Andreas Vesalius/ William Harvey
 Robert Boyle
 Consequences of SR
The Scientific Revolution
ca 1540-1690
Essential Questions
 How is the Scientific Revolution a change in both science
and thought?
 What are the causes and consequences of the Scientific
Revolution?
 Who is impacted by the Scientific Revolution? How are
those people/groups impacted?
Causes of the Scientific Revolution
 Science emerged as a minor but distinct branch of philosophy in leading universities (14 th &
15th centuries).
 This provided scholars a place to do their thinking, research, and writing.
 The Renaissance stimulated scientific progress.
 Challenging of inadequate theories
 Navigational problems of long sea voyages in the ‘Age of Exploration’ were a cause as well.
 Introduction of new technology
 Impact of the printing press allowing ideas to spread
The Aristotelian View of the Universe
 Aristotle put forth this view of the universe
in the 4th century B.C.
 This is commonly known as the
GEOCENTRIC view where a motionless
Earth is at the center of the universe while
the moon, sun, planets, and stars revolve
around the Earth.
 Notice also that it was believed that the
orbits were circular.
 Ancient astronomers also believed the Earth
was composed of “heavy” elements while
the celestial bodies were composed of
completely different substances and thus
were weightless, allowing them to orbit the
Earth.
Ptolemaic View of the Universe
 The astronomer and mathematician,
Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.) had worked
out complicated rules to explain the
minor irregularities in the movement of
the planets in an attempt to
mathematically prove the
GEOCENTRIC universe.
 While Ptolemy was wrong, a positive
consequence of his work was that it
allowed stargazers and astrologers to
track the planets with greater precision.
Heliocentric (Copernican) View of the
Universe
Nicolas Copernicus
 In the 16th century, the Polish monk,
mathematician, and astronomer
Copernicus (1473-1543) challenged the
geocentric theory.
 His famous work On the Revolutions of
the Heavenly Spheres, held the sun to be
the center of the solar system aka, the
HELIOCENTRIC theory.
 Maintained perfect circular orbits with
epicycles and bodies as perfect
crystalline spheres
 His ideas are attacked by religious
authorities; Luther called him “the fool
who wants to turn the whole art of
astronomy upside down.”
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

 Astronomical observer
 A Danish nobleman who received money
from the king of Denmark to build an
advanced observatory where he studied
the stars and planets; collecting over
twenty years of data.
 Thousands of pages of astronomical observations
 He had a very limited understanding of
mathematics, but hypothesized a universe
that was part Ptolemaic and part
Copernican (figure to the left).
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
 Brilliant young assistant of Brahe
 Formulated THREE laws of planetary motion:
 Orbits of the planets are ELIPTICAL rather than
circular
 Planets do NOT move at a uniform speed
in their orbits
 The time a planet takes to make its orbit
is precisely related to its distance from the sun
 Kepler’s contributions are HUGE;
he had mathematically proved the
relations of a sun-centered solar
system, aka HELIOCENTRIC
Galileo (1564-1642)
His investigation into the laws of motion and improvements on the telescope helped
further the understanding of the world and universe around him.

Formulated the law of inertia stating that rest is NOT the

natural state of objects.
Law of uniform acceleration
 Galileo in 1591, according to the story, dropped a 10-pound
and a 1-pound weight simultaneously from the top of the
Leaning Tower of Pisa.
 Galileo showed that despite all previous speculation on the
subject two bodies of different weights, when allowance was
made for differences in air resistance due to differences of
size or shape, struck the ground at the same time.
Law of the pendulum
 In 1602, he determined that the time it takes a pendulum to swing back and
forth does not depend on the arc of the swing. Near the end of his lifetime,
Galileo designed the first pendulum clock.
Galileo (1564-1642)
Played a significant role in the elaboration and consolidation of the
experimental method
 Rather than speculate about what might or should happen, he conducted controlled
experiments to find out what actually did happen.
He did not invent the telescope, but improved upon its design.
 He was the first to see craters on the moon, discovered sunspots, tracked the phases
of Venus, and viewed the rings of Saturn
 Most known for his discovery of the four most massive moons of Jupiter, now known
as the Galilean moons
What made him famous, got him into trouble
 In 1616, he was summoned to Rome and warned not to teach or write about the heliocentric
theory. But in 1632, believing that he could write on the subject if he treated it as a mathematical
proposition, he published work on the Copernican system.
 Because his writings contradicted scripture, Galileo was put on trial. He was found guilty of
heresy, and was placed under house arrest for the remaining nine years of his life.
 He was finally absolved by Pope John Paul II in 1992.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
 “If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
 Newton made discoveries in optics, motion and mathematics.
 Newton theorized that white light was a composite of all colors of the
spectrum, and that light was composed of particles.
 Published Principia in 1687 which postulated the law of universal
gravitation.
 This synthesized the astronomy of Copernicus, as corrected by Kepler’s laws, with the
physics of Galileo.
 According to this law, every body in the universe attracts every other body in the
universe in a precise mathematical relationship, whereby the force
of attraction is proportional to the quantity of matter of
the objects and inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them.
Francis Bacon
 Not a scientist
 Father of the Scientific Method
 Reliance on experimentation and a step by step
procedure that is repeatable
 Argued for an empirical, inductive approach,
known as the scientific method, which is the
foundation of modern scientific inquiry.
 Observe, Hypothesis, Experiment, Collect data,
Conclusion, Retest
Rene Descartes
 Relied on mathematics and logic to prove existence
 Most commonly known for his philosophical statement, “I
think, therefore I am”
 He is also attributed with developing Cartesian dualism, the
metaphysical argument that the mind and body are two different
substances which interact with one another.
 In mathematics, he bridged the gap between algebra and
geometry, which resulted in the Cartesian coordinate system
still widely used today.
Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 1564)
 Rejected theories of Galen
 Dissected human bodies to determine how the
body functions
 On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543
 Drawings of organs, bones, and muscles
 Most detailed examination of the human
body
William Harvey (1578 – 1657)
 Discovered the heart acts as a pump
circulating blood through the body
 Blood vessels
Robert Boyle
 Founder of chemistry
 Rejected Aristotle theory of four elements
 Instead matter made of tiny particles
 Boyle’s Law
 pV = k
 Volume, temperature, pressure
Consequences of the Scientific Revolution
 Creation of an international scientific community; scholars could engage in
discourse about theories and ideas, thus expanding knowledge.
 The modern scientific method.
 Few economic consequences for the masses
initially outside of navigation.
 Few practical and applied consequences of the science
to improve the lives of the masses.
 The greatest impact was on how people thought
and believed.
Questions to assess your understanding:
(the MICRO history)

 Whose ideas were the basis for Europeans’ view of the universe?
 How was science classified before 1500?
 Which astronomers contributed to the destruction of the geocentric view of the universe?
 Who postulated the heliocentric view of the universe?
 What does empiricism emphasize?
 Who created the modern scientific method?
 Who put forth the three laws of planetary motion?
 Who formulated the law of universal gravitation?
 What was Galileo’s greatest achievement?
 Who wrote On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres? What is its significance?
 Who wrote Principia? What is its significance?
 Who postulated the theory of inertia? What did it state?
 What is the significance of Gresham College to the discipline of science?
 Who is regarded as Europe’s leading astronomer with his vast amounts of detailed observations?
 What are the significant causes of the scientific revolution?
 What are the significant consequences of the scientific revolution?
Essential Questions
(the MACRO history)

 How is the Scientific Revolution a change in both science

and thought?
 What are the causes and consequences of the Scientific
Revolution?
 Who is impacted by the Scientific Revolution? How are
those people/groups impacted?