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100
Ptolemy
Ptolemy was a Roman astronomer, mathematician, geographer, astrologer, and poet who came up geocentric theory, meaning that the earth was the center of the universe. People believed this theory for centuries. -
1200
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, an English philosopher, and one of the leading scholars of his time was pretty important to the scientific revolution. He was one of the first people to favor the scientific method over the religious beliefs provided by the church. He challenged the church's beliefs and he changed the way people saw the world around them. Roger Bacon was the one that inspired most scientists to discover things and impact the world we live in today. -
1500
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was the scientist who changed the geocentric theory, to the heliocentric theory. This is important because if he hadn't then we may still believe that the earth was the center of the universe. Copernicus challenged Ptolemy's theory and changed the way people looked at the universe. -
1500
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
Antoni can Leeuwenhoek was a very important scientist because he was the one who used a microscope to discover bacteria and then called them "animalcules" or as most people know them, animals. He changed what the church said about the creation of animals and what they were. He then wrote about his findings to show people all of the tiny lifeforms than can not be seen through only the human eye. -
1543
Andreas Vesalius
Vesalius, a Flemish scientist, was one of the key scientists who helped create anatomy. Vesalius wasn't satisfied with the way anatomy was described, so he changed the books and wrote his own with detailed illustrations that were far ahead of their time. He challenged what readers thought and made a significant impact on how future scientists studied anatomy. He also helped the people locate and be more specific about which body part was which. -
Gottfried Leibniz
Leibniz helped create calculus, alongside Newton, which at the time, was a brand new way to do mathematics. The two of them did not work together because their ideas didn't relate and they were both independent from he other. He challenged Issac Newton many times and he changed the way people could do mathematics in older times. -
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was an important scientist and mathematician who didn't really challenge any theories so much as prove them. He proved Copernicus's heliocentric theory correct and although he may not of changed anything, he proved the theory correct, thus changing more minds of the people that dd not believe in this theory at first. -
William Harvey
William Harvey was an English physician, and was an important person who contributed to the study of anatomy. What Harvey did was, using lab experiments and different trials, he studied the circulation of blood and how it moved through arteries and your body. This is significant because it helped doctors and other scientists better understand the human body. He also challenged the church's beliefs at this point and history and changed the way regular people saw the human body. -
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was a English philosopher and scientist who lived around the same time as Descartes did. Bacon thought that you could only do science through observations which was significant because he came up with this new system of learning and he changed the way people experimented. He also changed the fact that the truth had to seen physically rather than through just thinking or reasoning. -
Galileo Galilei
Galilei was the man who invented the telescope. Many thought that this was a bad idea and that the telescope was an invention of the devil. Gelilei, however, was only trying to further prove that Copernicus's heliocentric theory was correct. He changed the way that people looked up into space, because he was the first person to ever see the mountains and valleys of the moon and see all the planets. He challenged Ptolemy's theory and significantly changed the way people saw "the heavens" -
René Descartes
Descartes, a french philosopher and mathematician, was said to be one of the leaders of the scientific revolution. He set ground rules that other future scientists would follow. He explained that the universe goes by certain laws of physics. Most of his work challenged teachings that were once spread by the church and so he was forced to live in the Protestant kingdom of Sweden where he died in 1650. -
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle was an English/Irish scientist who helped discover chemistry. He studied the composition of matter and how it changes. Boyle significantly changed how people saw the earth because before that had only the church to believe about these things. He showed that temperature and and pressure affect the space that gas occupies which was an amazing discovery for someone from his time. -
Issac Newton
Issac Newton, an English scientist, changed the way people saw the geocentric theory. He wrote and published a book on the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. They had shown the that the planets revolve around the sun, but none of them explained HOW the planets moved as they did. After lots of experiments, Newton discovered gravity which challenged the church's and most people's beliefs, and changed the heliocentric to make it more believable and true. -
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley discovered the element of oxygen in 1774. This was a bug discovery for science because in order for human life to survive, we need oxygen. He changed how people saw life and challenged what the church had told the people about life and how people lived. -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lavoisier named the element of oxygen. Before, oxygen didn't have a name and it was a big part of science and life so naming it was helpful for many different people. He also showed that the steam in oxygen mixes with the air and becomes invisible. He challenged the fact that matter is only one thing and proved that matter can change form, but can not be created nor destroyed.
