1. Enlightenment and Revolution:
The Scientific Revolution
Ch. 22.1

2. The Roots of Modern Science
 Renaissance inspired curiosity
 This led to the Reformation
 The Reformation and the challenge to
authority, helped start the Scientific
Revolution.

3. Science: The Medieval View
 Remember the Earth-
at-the-center-of-the-
Universe theory?
 Aristotle, the greatest
scientist until the
1500’s, had supported
this idea.
 After all, it seemed
logical. The Sun
moves and we don’t.

4. A New Way of Thinking
 Scientific Revolution: Beginning in the mid
1500’s, new scientific ideas would be based upon
careful observation.
 A willingness to question accepted beliefs
 Newfound manuscripts launched new ideas
 European exploration fueled scientific research.
 Used stars to guide ships
 Needed better instruments and geographic
measurements.
 When they started looking around, they found their
observations did not match the ancient beliefs.

5. Geocentric vs. Heliocentric
 Geo=Earth
 Helio= Sun
 Centric=Center
 Nicolaus Copernicus first started the concept.
 However, his theory could not perfectly explain why
the planets behaved the way they did.
 Johannes Kepler’s mathematic laws showed the
planets moved in elliptical patterns, not circular, like
proposed by Copernicus.

6. Aristotle vs. Galileo
 Aristotle  Galileo
 Believed a pendulum  Showed a pendulum
slowed down as it does not slow down.
approached its Called the Law of the
resting place Pendulum
 Believed heavier  Showed that all
objects fell faster objects fall at the
than smaller ones same speed.
 Earth was center of  With a homemade
universe telescope, monitored
the movement of the
stars to show the Sun
was the center of the
universe

7. Conflict with the Church
 Galileo was urged by the church not to pursue his
ideas about the universe
 He did anyway, in a book called Dialogue Concerning
the Two Chief World Systems
 Was threatened by the Church and forced to deny is
ideas he knew to be true
 Sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life.
 Later, the Church issued an apology to Galileo, saying
they were wrong to suppress his scientific findings.
IN 1992!!!!!

8. The Scientific Method
 Find a problem
 Form a hypothesis (prediction) about
that problem
 Observe the problem through
experimentation or data collection
 See if observation proves or
disproves the hypothesis
 Repeat process many times

9. Observation vs. Assumption
 What we see or believe isn’t always
what is going on.
 “I’d help someone who was in trouble”
 “Eyewitness accounts are reliable”
 “I’d never hurt another human just
because someone told me to”

10. Some Revolutionaries
 Francis Bacon
 English politician and writer
 Believed science could improve people’s lives
 Criticized peoples acceptance of Aristotle’s ideas
 Rene Descartes
 Rejected old assumptions and teachings
 Accept only things learned through
observation
 Knew only one thing for certain: “I
think, therefore I am.”
 Moved on from there.

11. Isaac Newton
 Brought together the ideas of Copernicus, Kepler, and
Galileo under one unifying theory.
 The Theory of Motion
 All things are affected by a force, gravity
 That force ruled the planets, pendulum, and all
matter on Earth and Space
 Every object attracts every other object. The degree
of attraction depends on the mass of that object and
the distance between the objects.
 His book Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy, described the universe as a giant clock.
 All its parts worked together perfectly in ways that
could be described by mathematics.
 Believed God was the creator of this orderly universe,
the clockmaker who had set everything in motion

12. The Revolution Spreads
 Zacharias Jannsen:
 1st microscope
 Anton van Leeuwenhoek:
 Observed bacteria under a microscope
 Proved tiny organisms did not just
spontaneously appear, as previously thought
 Evangelista Torricelli
 1st mercury barometer
 Gabriel Fahrenheit and Anders Celsius
 The mercury thermometer, and their respective
measurements

13.  Andreas Vesalius
 Dissected cadavers to get a better
understanding of the inner human body.
 William Harvey
 The Heart and Blood Vessels
 Edward Jenner
 Vaccine for smallpox using cowpox vs. smallpox
 Robert Boyle
 The founder of modern chemistry