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Period: 1200 to
Scientific Revolution
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1500
Roger Bacon
Bacon was an English philosopher and scientist. Bacon was viewed as a leading scholar of his time. He was a monk and he studied at Oxford and in Paris. He was one of the earliest people to prefer science over religious beliefs and ancient ideas. This is important because he went from the idea of everything just magically happening to there being science behind everything. -
1543
Copernicus
Copernicus was a Polish scientist who disputed Ptolemyś theory. This theory was called the geocentric theory. Instead, he said that the sun was the center of the universe. This was called heliocentric theory. This is important because he began the heliocentric theory. -
1543
Vesalius
Vesalius was a Flemish scientist who refused to accept descriptions of muscles and tissues written by earlier scientists. He did his own studies to see how the human body is constructed and how muscles work. This is important because before him there was a false description of how the human body worked. -
1543
Harvey
William Harvey was an English physician famous for the study of the circulation of blood. He studied how the blood moved through veins and arteries. This is important because of the way medications are now given intravenously. -
Kepler
Kepler was a German astronomer who was a brilliant mathematician. He used models to test others theories, like Copernicus, and found that others theories were wrong. He eventually proved that the heliocentric theory was correct. -
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was an English philosopher and scientist who lived around the time of Descartes. He believed that scientific theories could be developed only through observation. He stated you could not trust an assumption. Something could only be proven through a reputable experiment. This is important because it started the rule of something only being true if it is tested multiple times with the same outcome. -
Galileo
Galileo was an Italian scientist. He read of a dutch device that made distant objects appear larger. He made his own telescope and was able to see things that no one had ever seen. He saw rings around Saturn, spots on the sun and saw the moon circling Jupiter. He used these observations to prove not all heavenly bodies revolve around Earth. This is important because he taught that not all planets revolve around Earth; that Earth is one of the revolving planets. -
Descartes
Descartes was a French philosopher and mathmatician. He was a leader of the scientific revolution. His ideas led to advances in math, science and philosophy. -
Van Leeuwenhoek
Van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch scientist who used the microscope and discovered bacteria. He called them animalcules. He wrote about tiny life forms never before seen by the human eye. This is important because he knew that there was more than just what the eye could see. -
Boyle
Boyle was and English-Irish scientist who helped pioneer the modern science of chemistry. Boyle showed that temperature and pressure affect the space that a gas occupies. This is important because he is the creator of chemistry, which is used every single day. -
Liebnitz
Liebnitz helped develop calculus. He developed his own math ideas independently. This is important because it was a new branch of mathematics. -
Newton
Isaac Newton was an English scientist who published a book that built on the work of Copernicus. The book was about the planets revolving around the sun. His study was important because he used the idea and found proof that the planets do in fact revolve around the sun. -
Priestley
Priestley discovered the element oxygen. This is important because it explained that we are not just breathing in air. Air is made up of different elements. -
Lavoisier
Lavoisier is a scientist who named oxygen, once it had been discovered by Priestley. This was important because we now could now use it by name.
