4. Nicholas Copernicus
1473 - 1543
Polish astronomer and
astrologer
On the revolutions of the
celestial spheres, 1543
Proposed motion of the
Earth and fixity of the Sun.
5.
6.
7.
8. On the revolutions of the
celestial spheres
“Let no one ignorant of
geometry enter here”
Owen Gingerich has called it
“the book no body read.”
9. The Copernican Revolution
“The Copernican Revolution was a
revolution in ideas, a transformation
of man’s conception of the universe
and of his own relation to it. Again
and again this episode in the history
of Renaissance thought has been
claimed as an epochal turning point
in the intellectual development of
Western man.”
(Kuhn, 1957, p. 1)
10. The Copernican “Revolution”
No immediate change in
astronomical theory or practice
and only began to have an
influence ~75 years after
publication.
Copernicus’ ideas were rapidly
overtaken by those of Kepler.
The “revolution” is an invention of
historians in the late 18th Century
and continued by Kuhn and others.
11. The Copernican “Revolution”
“Had it not been for the contribution of Tycho Brahe
and [Johannes] Kepler, the Copernican system would
have contributed to the perpetuation of the Ptolemaic
system in a slightly more complicated form but more
pleasing to philosophical minds” (O. Neugebauer, 1968,
p. 103)
“If there was a revolution in astronomy, that revolution
was Keplerian and Newtonian, and not in any simple or
valid sense Copernican” (I.B. Cohen, 1985, p. 125)
12.
13.
14. Tycho Brahe
1546 – 1601
First scientific institute
New instruments
New tables of atmospheric
refraction
New observational
protocols
Continual observation of
planets
15.
16.
17.
18. Johannes Kepler
1571 – 1630
German astronomer,
mathematician & astrologer.
Assisted Brahe and inherited his
data
Astronomia Nova, 1609
Three laws of planetary motion
Largely a revolution on paper only.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
26. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
27. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
28. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
29. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
30. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
31. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
32. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
33. A Time of Crisis &
Revolution
1609 – Kepler’s New Astronomy
1610 – Galileo’s Starry Messenger
1618 – Beginning of Thirty Year War
1620 – Bacon’s Novum Organon
1638 – Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1642 – English Civil War
1660 – Foundation of the Royal Society
1687 – Newton’s Principia
1688 – The “Glorious Revolution”
34. Key Innovations
Scientific methods (Descartes
& Bacon)
Return to observation
Reliance on experimentation
Networks of inquiry
35. Francis Bacon
1561 – 1626
English politician and philosopher
Novum Organum, 1620
Experimentally-based induction
as a method for attaining
knowledge
The importance of the “negative
instances” and “crucial
instances.”
Communal nature of inquiry
56. Galileo Galilei
1564 - 1642
Starry Messenger, 1610
Letters on Sunspots, 1613
The Assayer, 1623
Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems, 1632
Discourse on the Two New
Sciences, 1638
84. The Assayer (1623)
“[Natural] Philosophy is written in this grand book -
the universe - which stands continuously open to
our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless
one first learns to comprehend the language and
interpret the characters in which it is written. It is
written in the language of mathematics, and its
characters are triangles, circles, and other
geometrical figures, without which it is humanly
impossible to understand a single word of it; without
these one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.”
Notes de l'éditeur
Ptolemaic - perfect, unchanging - more complicated that it appears
German? Pole? - Beginning of SciRev? - Simplicity
Presented a copy on his deathbed @ 70
Not the first heliocentric model - Aristarchus in the 3rd C BCE, for example/ Not a figure by Copernicus - mobile inner spheres / immobile outer of stars
Simplicity eluded him and epicycles were needed. Not much an improvement on the geocentric model.
Church really paid no attention to this model (as claimed by the preface) / Highly mathematical and in Latin
Copernicus’ “conversation with God” (1872)
Buried in Fromburk Cathedral – reconstruction
Observation / No telescopes / Prosthetic gold bridge to nose
Uraniborg / instruments / This model – though never really accepted – fitted the facts as then known better than any. It is also wrong. What was the problem? Spheres!
Uraniborg / instruments / This model – though never really accepted – fitted the facts as then known better than any. It is also wrong. What was the problem? Spheres!
Publication of Brahe’s data
Publication of Brahe’s data
Publication of Brahe’s data
Publication of Brahe’s data
Beware of seeing K as a modern - mysticism
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
30 yr war involved most of europe, fought on germany, cath v protest, defenestration of prague
But not too much democracy
This year is the 350th anniversary of foundation of the RSL
The Air Pump
Joseph Wright of Derby - Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) - The Alchemist - A philosopher lecturing
Joseph Wright of Derby - Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) - The Alchemist - A philosopher lecturing
Influence on Newton, Hooke, etc. Writing largely in Italian.
1608 - obtained patent (in Holland) for telescope - lead to great interest among scientits and attempts to improve.
Begins improvement in 1609. 3x -> 30x
Aug 1609 - Presenting the telescope to the Doge of Venice - economic benefit
Latin
Pleiades / Belt of Orion
Pleiades / Belt of Orion
Pleiades / Belt of Orion
Pleiades / Belt of Orion
Pleiades / Belt of Orion
Pleiades / Belt of Orion
Named after Cosimo di Medici (to preserve his memory) - now Galilean Sats.
Actually 63
Sensing trouble - Letter to Grand Duchess - 1615 (not pub until 1636).
Inquisition - 1633 - due to Simplico in the Dialogue - house improsionment until death in 1642.