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Jan 1, 1214
Roger Bacon
English philosopher and Franciscan Friar with a college degree. Put an emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods. Was one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method. -
Feb 19, 1473
Nicolaus Copernicus
He was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Wrote a book called On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres which was often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution. Made a heliocentric model of the universe. -
Dec 31, 1514
Andreas Vesalius
Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. He based his observations on dissections he made himself. -
Jan 22, 1561
Francis Bacon
English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism. He was knighted in 1603. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Galilei
He was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He was born in Pisa, Italy and studied at the University of Pisa. Galileo invented the thermometer, a revolutionary water pump, and a hydrostatic balance. He was the first person to use a telescope to observe the skies, and discovered many new things about the solar system. -
Dec 27, 1571
Johannes Kepler
He was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion. During his life he wrote three works titled Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy which later provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. -
Apr 1, 1578
William Harvey
He was an English physician. After six years' attendance at the grammar school at Canterbury, Harvey being then sixteen years of age, was entered at Caius College, Cambridge. He described completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the body by the heart. He was extremely skeptical of spontaneous generation and proposed that all animals originally came from an egg. -
Rene Descartes
He was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy'. He is also credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. -
Robert Boyle
He was a 17th-century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as Irish, English and Anglo-Irish. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemists, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law, which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume. -
Issac Newton
He was an English mathematician and physicist who invented calculus, formulated the law of gravitation, and discovered the laws of motion. He also investigated the nature of light. Known for Newton's three laws of motion to this day.
