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1200
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon was an early English philosopher that lived before the Renaissance. He was considered a leading scholar of his time and was one of the earliest to respect a system of scientific experiments rather than acceptance faithfully of religious and ancient beliefs. Bacon practiced mainly alchemy and was shaped by the thinking of time because of this. It was for his famous teachings that got him the name Doctor Mirabilis wonderful teacher. This was important because old ways were changing. -
1300
Spirit of the Renaissance
The spirit of the Renaissance strengthened discovery, investigation, curiosity and the application of knowledge of nature to people and their daily lives. This started people questioning their old beliefs and ideas and if they were right or not. Because of this, new approaches were used to answer questions about the world of nature. On top of this mathematics and experiments were being done which made studies more organized. This was important because people were learning to help their lives. -
1400
New Study of Nature
At this time, scientists had learned to make conclusions based off of what they could observe with their senses. They also used new tools like experiments, mathematics and scientific instrument which marked the beginning of the scientific revolution. Mathematics were used to check measurements and experiments were being repeated over again to make sure results found were the same. This was a turning point that led to a quick increase in people and their understanding of the world. -
1500
Three areas of New Study
To the strongest thinkers of the time, three new areas of study were very interesting- astronomy, physics and anatomy. These new study topics were introduced and shaped by a few European scientists of that time. Physics was mainly a study focused on properties and changes of energy and matter. Anatomy was a field that studied the structure of human bodies and was mostly by examining bodies of the dead. Finally, Astronomy was the study of planets, stars and other things in the sky. -
Period: 1500 to
More scientific discoveries
Throughout the 1500s and the 1600s, many new discoveries were being made all across Europe. The English thinker Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebnitz created a new branch of mathematics called calculus. These two did not work together and created ideas by themselves. Soon after that a Dutch scientist named Antoni van Leeuwenhoek used a microscope that was invented in the 1500s and discovered bacteria. He called these things animalcules and wrote about these tiny life forms never seen by a human. -
1543
Copernicus
Around 100 A.D., an astronomer Ptolemy stated to the world that Earth was in the center of the universe. According to him, the sun and the planets moved around the earth. This theory was called the geocentric theory of to some people "Earth-centered" theory. In the early 1500's, a Polish scientist named Nicolaus Copernicus disagreed with Ptolemy's theory and argued that the sun was the center of our universe. Copernicus and his theory was called the heliocentric or the "sun-centered" theory. -
Johannes Kepler
After Copernicus's theory Johannes Kepler a German astronomer helped to confirm the understanding of the universe that he had started. Kepler was a smart mathematician that used observations, models and mathematics to test his theories. Since some of the things that Copernicus had based his theory off of were found, this slowed down Johannes Kepler down. This didn't stop him and in 1609, his laws about planetary motion were published. This shows how people working together can prove new things. -
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei had been reading about a Dutch devise that somehow made things far away seem larger. He decided so make his own devise- a telescope and started studying heavens. This telescope was very small and simple compared to the ones in our time but still was able to help Galileo discover things never seen before. His work was published in 1632 and caused a major uproar among many scholars who still believed in Ptolemy's theory. These discoveries made a new base for the study of mechanics. -
René Descartes
René Descartes was a French mathematician and philosopher that was a leader and made ideas that led to great help in sciences and mathematics. Descartes believed that no assumptions could be accepted without any questioning. He formed a philosophy based off of his reasoning. In his eyes, all fields of science were connecting and needed to be studies together. René and his range of interest were very big which showed how dedicated he was to working with the world and helping to change old things. -
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle was a English- Irish scientist that helped in the pioneering of the modern science of chemistry. This study was about the composition of the changes in matter. Around 1662, Boyle showed the world that both pressure and temperature affect the space that a gas has. This was important to the way people thought because before this moment, people thought differently about matter and didn't known anything about the study of chemistry. -
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton in 1687 published a book working on the work of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler who had shown that all the planets including earth revolved around the sun. One thing they had not explained was why they moved the way they did. Newton after much measuring and experimenting realized that the force that hold the planets inside their orbit is the same force that causes any object to fall on earth. Newton's influences were so big that an English poet, Alexander Pope wrote a poem for him. -
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was a famous artist during the Renaissance and also a man of the human body. To all of the people that tried to describe the body he said, " I advise you not to trouble with words unless you are speaking to blind men." One man named Andreas Vesalius did not agree with these words and started learning about the study of anatomy. Vesalius refused to look at any work describing human muscles and did his own studies to learn how our body is constructed. -
William Harvey
William Harvey was an English physician used cooratory experiments to study the circulation of blood. He showed the world how blood moves through our veins and arteries and also saw the working of the body and it's most important muscles- the heart. This was important to the people at that time because now they could understand how blood circulates through your body and why the heart is important to your body. -
Counter- Reformation
At the time of the Counter- Reformation, there were religous orders that helped to renew faith in church teachings. These new scientific "rules" spread much knowledge about the development of the scientific revolution. Schools devoted to just science started popping up in France, England and Rome. Also, the printing press started helping scientists by publishing their studies in journals. Now, people all around the world could learn about new things scientists were discovering. -
The discovery of Oxygen
In 1774, an English chemist named Joseph Priestly discovered an element called oxygen. Later, a French scientist, Antoine Lavoisier named it. Before this element was founded, people thought that fire was an element. He showed the world how fire is the result when a substance combined with oxygen is used at a fast rate. In other words, he showed people that matter can change it's form but it can't be created or destroyed. This idea founded by Lavoisier was called the law of conservation matter.
