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150
Ptolemy
Ptolemy believed that the world was the center of the universe, and that everything revolves around it. Therefore, created the geocentric theory. People believed this for many centuries, about 1400 years. This made others question things beyond Earth. Ptolemy challenged the way people think about space and how everything came to be. -
1200
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon was an English philosopher and scientist. He was one of the earliest to believe in the system of scientific experimentation, over religion ideas and ancient beliefs. This made more people change and question how things came to be, and how they can figure this out. This is significant because more and more people began to look into science to find these answers. -
1543
William Harvey
William Harvey was an English physician who researched the human body. Harvey researched blood circulation,he describes how the blood flows throughout your veins and arteries. He also observed the heart. Harvey explained that blood does not contain bubbles of air. He proved that blood does not pass through the heart’s septum, and he explained the function of the valves in the heart and larger veins. Harvey challenged earlier thoughts of how blood traveled throughout the human body. -
1543
Nicolaus Copernicus
Today, Nicolaus Copernicus is viewed as the founder of modern astronomy. At first it was thought that other planets moved in circular orbits around Earth. His observations did not agree with this, so Copernicus looked further into it. Copernicus developed the heliocentric theory, meaning that the sun is the center of the universe and that Earth revolves around the sun. Copernicus challenged Ptolemy and the way people think about Earth's orbit. -
1543
Andreas Vesaluis
Andreas Vesalius was a Flemish scientist that studied the human body (anatomy). He refused to believe Galen's description that was made 1400 years earlier about the human body. In 1543, Vesaluis published a book of illustrations of the human body that were amazingly detailed for the time period. This was significant because he gave visuals about how everything worked. It gave people something to reference back to when studying the human body. -
1579
Francois Viete
Francois Viete created the theory of equations and trigonometry. He proved that difficult equations can be solved by using mathematic equations. He completed a cypher that was more than 500 characters long. The creator of the cypher thought it was black magic, but through math, Viete convinced him and he changed his mind. This is significant because it helps explain many things that happen through physics, chemistry, and more. -
1580
Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek
Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch scientist that used a microscope to discover bacteria, never seen before by the human eye. Leeuwenhoek called them animalcules. He studied them and wrote about a whole range of the tiny life forms. Leeuwenhoek changed the way you can use the telescope, not just using it to look into space. This discovery is also significant because he was the first one to discover these single celled organisms. -
Galileo Galilei
Galileo had read about a Dutch device that made objects appear larger, so he decided to make his own device that did the same. Galileo began to study the sky. He observed the rings around Saturn, Jupiter's moons, and more. He used this to argue that not every thing revolves around the Earth. Galileo published his findings in 1632. Many people that still believed Ptolemy's geocentric theory, would refuse to believe Galileo's findings. Galileo challenged Ptolemy and changed the way people think. -
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a mathematician who looked further into Copernicus' heliocentric theory. He was able to prove that most of this theory was correct. Very little people started to believe in this theory, they still wanted to believe in Ptolemy's old geocentric theory. He published his laws of planetary motion in 1609. Kepler challenged Ptolemy's geocentric theory. -
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes believed that no assumptions should be accepted without question. He developed a philosophy based on this. It stated that all assumptions had to be proven on the basis of known facts.This is significant because people now needed to prove their thinking based on facts. -
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon stated that scientific theories only be developed by observations and repeated experiments. This challenged the idea that if you said something that you think is right, it doesn't automatically mean that it is a fact. Now, people need to prove how they are correct by experiments. -
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle stated that there is always an inverse relationship between pressure and gas volume. This changed peoples views on pressure, volume of gas, and how that worked. People did not realize that there is always an inverse relationship between the two. This also led to others finding out more inverse relationships between other objects. -
Isaac Newton
Issac Newton was an English scientist in 1687. He published a book building of the work of Copernicus, Kelper, and Galileo. They showed how everything revolves around the sun, but were not able to explain why they moved as they did. After many experiments, Newton found that force holds the planets in their orbits. He later proposed the law of universal gravitation, which says that all bodies attract each other. This challenged and changed Copernicus, Kelper, and Galileo's thinking. -
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley's biggest achievements was discovering oxygen, and what it was made out of. Before this, people thought that air was made of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. When he discovered oxygen, it challenged others, and more people started to realize that there were many other gases than just carbon dioxide and hydrogen. This led to more discoveries of other types of gases. -
Antonie Lavoisier
Antonie Lavoisier created the law of conservation and proved that matter can change its forms. He believed that is not created or destroyed in chemical reactions. This changed how people thought about chemistry. Many chemists were worried about how chemical reactions happened and how the chemicals changed. He wanted to prove that the chemicals don't loose any weight. This helped scientists research further into chemical reactions.
