This unit examines the explosion of scientific knowledge and reasoning in the 15th and 16th centuries that laid the foundation for the development of the modern world. After the return of Columbus in 1493 with reports of a “New World” unknown to the ancients, and the shattering of the Catholic consensus by Martin Luther in 1517, the announcement by Copernicus on his deathbed in 1543 that the universe was not centered around the earth was the third and most unsettling blow to more than a thousand years of traditional wisdom. These new developments nourished an air of skeptical inquiry spread far and wide by the printing press. The primary method for understanding the world slowly shifted from simply accepting ancient authority and traditional teachings, to observation, measurement and analysis. Both Chapter 15 and the readings from “The Science of Liberty” demonstrate the profound social and political impacts of this new way of thinking.

1. Unit 4
They Moved the Earth!

2. Our closest neighbors within 6,000 light years
http://tzontonel.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/national-geographic-milky-way-reference-map1.jpg

3. http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs45/f/2009/086/a/3/you_are_here_by_deeminllama.jpg

4. 15th Century Beliefs about the Universe
1. The earth was young and the
universe was small.
a. 6,000 years old
b. Stars within walking
distance (25 miles a day for
713 years.
2. Perfect order and symmetry of
spheres.
3. Earth the center of creation—
humans the center of the
center of creation.

5. The Figure of the Heavenly Bodies
Ptolemaic geocentric conception of the universe
Bartolomeu Velho (1568)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bartolomeu_Velho_1568.jpg

6. Ptolemaic Geocentric
Conception of the Universe

8. Ptolemaic Geocentric
Conception of the Universe

9. Earth
3D Space Simulations
http://www.mogi-vice.com/Pagine/Downloads.html
has many beautiful 3D simulations including an excellent
portrait of the Ptolemaic System. Look particularly at the
following:
Models for planetary motion: a geocentric view
with epicycles, and how phenomena of internal
planets can suggest a different setting. (avi-Divx, 20 Some other simpler animations of solar
Mb). system:
http://astro.unl.edu/naap/ssm/animations/ptolemaic.swf
Models for planetary motion: the retrograde phase http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQ8Tb85HrU
of external planets and the two main historic For another offbeat look at the way reality
explanations. (avi-Divx, 3,9 Mb). can be shoe-horned into a scientific model
Panoramic view of the Milky Way, and solar
look at this view of Ptolmey and Homer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVuU2YCwHjw
position within. (avi-Divx, 13,7 Mb).
From Earth to the fixed stars: the planetary order
according to Aristotle (avi-Divx, 7 Mb).

10. Copernicus and Galileo
Nikolaus Copernicus Galileo Galilei
(1473-1543) (1564-1642)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Nikolaus_Kopernikus.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Galileo_Galilei_2.jpg

11. Astronomer Copernicus,
or Conversations with God (1873)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Jan_Matejko-
Astronomer_Copernicus-Conversation_with_God.jpg
Copernicus - 1473-1543
The world was not at the center of the solar system as the
Church and European traditions had taught for more than a
thousand years…

12. The Copernican Universe

13. The Copernican Universe
The Copernican Universe This
seventeenth-century Dutch engraving
illustrates Copernicus's revolutionary
“heliocentric” theories, which placed the
sun—rather than the Earth—at the
center of the universe.

14. Galileo
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Galileo_Donato.jpg

16. Galileo
Galileo before the 2009 Re-Trial.
Holy Office 1633 (Click on the link to view the transcript)
by Joseph-Nicolas http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2867077.htm
Robert-Fleury (1847)
In spring 2012 the Portland Opera
staged a new opera by composer Philip Glass.
http://www.portlandopera.org/operas/2011-2012/galileo-galilei#overview

17. 3 Keys on Road to the Scientific Skepticism
Decline of faith in tradition and authority as the explanation of
the way the world works!
1493 - Columbus’s return changed earth
1517 - Martin Luther’s protest changed faith
1543 - Copernicus’s system changed universe
What else was different between tradition and
reality?

18. Mathematics:
The Language of the Universe
by Galileo Galilei (1623)
Our universe “cannot be understood
unless one learns to comprehend the
language and read the letters in which it
is composed. It is written in the language
of mathematics…without which it is
humanly impossible to understand a
single word of it; without these, one
wanders about in a dark labyrinth.”
(The Assayer, 1623)

19. Learning How to Count
While addition of Roman numerals is not
complicated, multiplication of large numbers is.
Click the link below to view a video that describes the
basics of using Roman numbers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5_2o8MITH4

20. The Church Was Right

21. ?cience
• Comes from latin word scire “to know”
or scienta “knowledge”
• In 1600s “scientific knowledge” less
fallible than “common knowledge”
• Science as belief system embraces as a
goal:
– questions, not answers
– doubt, not faith
– ignorance, not knowledge

22. Science is always wrong
(and that’s why it works)
“Religion is always right. Religion protects us
against that great problem which we all
must face.
“Science is always wrong; it is the very artifice
of men. Science can never solve one
problem without raising 10 more problems.”
George Bernard Shaw honoring
Albert Einstein, October 28, 1930
(New York Times, March 14, 1991)