Scientific Awakening

A directional change in thinking• 1650s to 1750s

• “The most important event in European History since the rise of Christianity”

• “Real origin both of the modern world and the modern mentality”

Overview

• After the reformation and religious wars– Environment was created to

“question”• Ecclesiastical concept?

• Political realms?

– Now, what about the “intellectual realm”

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2

• Medieval view of the world

– Primarily religious and theological

– Political theory based on divine right of kings

– Society largely governed by Church views, traditions, and practices

– Superstition played major role in the lives of the people

– Scientific thought in the early-16th century was still based on Medieval ideas

• Views about the universe were largely influenced by the ancient ideas of Aristotle

• The geocentric view held that the earth was the center of a static, motionless universe

• Science was essentially a branch of theology

Causes of the Scientific Revolution

• Medieval Intellectual Life and Medieval Universities– Medieval philosophers developed a

degree of independence from theologians and a sense of free inquiry.

• The Italian Renaissance• Renewed emphasis on mathematics• Renaissance system of patronage• Navigational problems of long sea

voyages• Better scientific instruments

Consequences of the Scientific Revolution• Rise of the “Scientific

Community”

--Royal Society of London (1662)

--Academy of Royal Sciences (1666)

• The modern scientific method

• A universe ordered according to natural laws

• Secularism emerged and many educated people became openly hostile to religion

Consequences of the Scientific Revolution (cont)

• Laws discovered by human reason

• “De-Spiritualized” and de-mystified the Universe

• Mechanical View of the Universe

"The rise of the scientific spirit was a notable feature of the Renaissance [and, especially, just afterwards]: men no longer accepted without question the opinions of the ancients about the universe and the laws governing the natural world; dogma was subjected to experiment, and when it failed to survive the test it was rejected and new theories were formulated. Thus science in the modern sense was born, and rapid progress was made in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. But the immediate consequences for technology were confined to a few specialized fields; in the main, technological progress still depended upon the use of empirical methods by practical men. On the whole, up to 1750 science probably gained more from technology than vice versa."

– T.K. Derry and T. I. Williams, A Short History of Technology

Scientific Awakening (Overview)

Scientist Contributions

Copernicus Challenged a basic theory

Galileo Linked experiments and math

Bacon Scientific Method

Descartes Theoretical Science

Newton Applied laws to the universe

Lavoisier Quantification of experiments

Earth

Moon

Mercury

Motion of Mercury

Ptolemy Model of the Universe 90-268 AD

Copernicus (1473-1543)

• Aim to glorify God

• Sun-centered universe

• Challenged circular orbits

• Universe of staggering size

• Earth no different than any other planet.

• Realized the earth turns on an axis

• Directly challenged Ptolemy’s 2nd-century A.D. view of a geocentric universe

• Seemed to challenge the Bible’s Book of Genesis that also put forth a geocentric view

• On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)

“And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.”

– Joshua 10:13

“And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun.”

- Helaman 12:15

Copernicus

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

• Most sophisticated observatory of his day– This data became a cornerstone

of astronomy for centuries

• Arrogant nobleman• Remained an Aristotelian• Discovered comet shooting

right through crystalline spheres

Tycho Brahe’s Model

Earth not at center of circles

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)• Student of Brahe• First great Protestant scientist; assistant to Brahe

– Developed three laws of planetary motion:

• Orbits of planets are elliptical

• Planets do not move at uniform speed while in their orbits

• The time it takes for a planet to orbit the sun is directly based on its distance from the sun.

– The closer the planet to the sun (e.g. Mercury and Venus) the faster its orbit

Kepler's Laws of Planetary MotionI. The orbits of the planets are ellipses, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse.

II. The line joining the planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times as the planet travels around the ellipse.

III. The ratio of the squares of the revolutionary periods for two planets is equal to the ratio of the cubes of their semi-major axes (half the major axis).

Major axis

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)• Early practitioner of the

experimental method• Mathematical formula for

acceleration of falling objects• Law of motion• His discoveries using the

telescope• Challenges categories of “form”

and “matter”• Linked science and math with

observation• Established math as language of

science• End of his life

“Truth cannot be found in the book of Aristotle but in the book of Nature; and the book of

Nature is written in the language of mathematics.”

- Galileo

Galileo

Why is this a controversial

Galileo’s Contributions• Engineering skills• Galileo was the first to use

the telescope as a scientific instrument; he built one himself

• Manufacturing

• Music and art capabilities

• Optic developments– Founded modern

astronomy

• Secularized science

“God is the author of two great books—the book of scripture and the book of nature. These cannot be in conflict; so any apparent contradictions come from fallible human interpretations…Scripture is a book about how to go to heaven; not a book about how heaven goes.”

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

- Galileo

Quotes

Galileo’s Trial

• Court scientist to the Medici family– Many discussions about Copernican theory

• Taught Copernican theory widely as truth

• Ordered by the church to teach it as a theory

• Wrote a book on the theory– Three people discussing

• Court on defiance of previous church order

• Sentenced to house arrest and silence

Galileo

• “I feel sure that the moon is not perfectly smooth, free from inequalities, and exactly spherical…it is full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances, just like the surface of the earth…The next object which I have observed is the essence or substance of the Milky Way…the galaxy is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.”

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

• Father of the Scientific Revolution

• The Inductive Method

• Emphasis on practical, useful knowledge

• New attitude toward nature

"Method is like a pathway and if the pathway leads in the right direction, you will eventually get to the truth. [Bacon's pathway was induction combined with experimentation]... Genius [like Aristotle] is the ability to run quickly. However if a genius is on the wrong pathway, he will never be able to come to the truth since he will just move more quickly in the wrong direction."

– Bacon

"This is the foundation of all, for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover what nature does or may be made to do."

– Bacon, Novum Organum

Bacon’s Truths1. Sensory perception (empirical knowledge) more reliable in examining

the world than pure logic or theology.

2. Manipulation of the world instead of just observation.

3. Principle of cause and effect accepted as inviolate.

4. Theory developed after experiments were interpreted. (Inductive reasoning given precedence over deductive reasoning.)

5. Interpretation of data to be unbiased.

6. Well supported and accepted theories become laws.

“Now the empire of man over things is founded on the arts and sciences alone for

nature is only to be commanded by obeying her.”

- Sir Francis Bacon

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• Significance of Doubt• The Deductive Method• (I think, therefore I am)• Spatial relationships can

be expressed in mathematical formulas

• Father of “analytical geometry”

• Banned by Catholic Church

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• Since “the mind cannot be doubted but the body and material world can, the two must be radically different” ~ Cartesian dualism

• “…provided only that one abstains from accepting any for true which is not true, and that one always keeps the right order for one thing to be deduced from that which precedes it, there can be nothing so distant that one does not reach it eventually, or so hidden that one cannot discover it.”

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

• Newton far from the perfect rationalist

• A great synthesizer

• Blends inductive and deductive methods

• Argues for a universe governed by natural laws

• Principia; Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687)

Isaac Newton

• The greatest scientist who ever lived

• Disinterested student• Time at the farm• Cambridge—professor of math• Never married• Manic depressive

Isaac Newton

• Avoided publishing findings due to criticism

• Principia Mathematica– Discovery of gravity

– Greatest scientific work

• Discoveries in math and optics– Developed Calculus

• Introduced Modeling

“In the preceding books I have laid down the principles…[that] are the laws of certain motions, and power or forces…It remains that from the same principles I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World.”

“If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

- Newton

Isaac Newton

"Newton was driven with a zeal that would unnerve the most devoted scholar: experimenting for days without food or sleep; staring at the sun until the image continued to burn unrelievedly in his head; probing his eye with a darning needle to investigate optical effects. He set out to test the limits of the physical world and in the process often discovered his own."

– Isacoff, Stuart, Temperament, Vintage Books, 2001, p. 10.

• Memory Device for Scientific Revolution:

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• C ops Copernicus

• B ring Brahe

• K ids Kepler

• G reat Galileo

• B ig Bacon

• D onuts Descartes

• N ow Newton