-
400 BCE
Background of the Early Years
Most Europeans didn't see much of a difference between science and magic. Alchemists used spells, and magic formulas to change one substance to another. An example is turning lead into gold. Astrologers believed that the position of the the stars influenced human life. People still believed explanations of natural events that were proposed by Aristotle about 2,000 years earlier. . They preferred to use the Greek and Roman ways to explain the mysteries of nature. -
100
Ptolemy
In the A.D. 100’s, Ptolemy was an astronomer, who stated that the earth was the center of the universe. According to Ptolemy, the sun and the planets moved around the earth. This theory is called the Geocentric theory. People believed this theory for many years. -
1200
Roger Bacon
Bacon was an english philosopher and a Scientist of the 1200’s. He was also a monk, and he studied at oxford and Paris. He was the leading scholar of his time. He was also one of the earliest scientist to favor scientific experimentation, rather than favoring the religious ideas and ancient beliefs as ways of finding out the truth. He was shaped by the thinking of the time, and mainly practiced alchemy. -
1500
Nicolaus Copernicus
During the early 1500s, a Polish scientist named Nicolaus Copernicus, began to abandon the geocentric theory. Copernicus argued that the sun was the center of the universe. He developed the heliocentric theory. Copernicus then realized that his theory would explain many of the then known facts about astronomy. Not many people paid attention to the theory. Anyone could see that the sun and planets moved around the earth, because the earth was solid, and wouldn't move, they denied the theory. -
1540
William Harvey
Making equally important contributions as Vesalius, Harvey used laboratory experiments to study the circulation of blood. He described how the blood moved through veins and arteries. Along with that, he also studied the body's most important muscle which is the heart -
1543
Andrea Vesalius
Following Leonardo Da Vincis words about “not to trouble with words unless you are speaking to blind men”, Andrea Vesalius pioneered a study of anatomy. He refused to accept the descriptions of human muscles and tissues written by Galen hundreds of years before. He did his own studies, and saw how to human body was constructed. Vesalius then published a book about the human body and how it works in 1543. -
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer who helped confirm Copernicus’s new understanding of the universe. He was a brilliant mathematician who used models, observation, and math to test Copernicus’s heliocentric theory. Some of the ideas that Copernicus based the theory on were wrong. This slowed Kepler down, but eventually he proved that the heliocentric theory was correct. He made his laws of planetary motion in 1609 -
Gottfried Liebniz
Gottfried developed the mathematical branch of calculus along with Isaac Newton, although the pair did not work together. This was during the 1500s and the 1600s, when all different kinds of discoveries were being made about science. They developed the term based off of each other's observations. -
Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek
Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek used the microscope, created by Galileo, to discover bacteria. The name he used for them was animalcules. He then studied and wrote about the tiny life forms that had never before been seen by the human eye. -
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was an English scientist in the late 1600s. He published a book that built on the work of Copernicus, his theories. Newton saw that the force that holds the planets in orbit, and the force that causes objects to fall to the earth are equal. He proposed the law of universal gravitation which states that all bodies attract to each other, and the attraction can be measured. Newton explained the laws of motion, and the mathematical importance of measuring motion. -
Francis Bacon
Bacon was an English philosopher and scientist. He was alive around the same time that Descartes was. Bacon believed that scientific theories could only be proven by observation. He stated that no assumption could be trusted without being proven by repeatable experiments. Francis relied on the truths that could be conducted physically, other than with thinking, and reasoning. He published a book in 1620 named Novum Organum, and it outlined the new knowledge of the system. -
Galileo Galilei
Galileo helped to confirm Copernicus’s heliocentric theory. He read of a Dutch device that made objects appear larger. Galileo built his own device called the telescope. He saw the mountains, and valleys of the moon, and observed the rings around Saturn and the spots on the sun. He used these observations to argue that not every heavenly body revolved around the earth. He drew sketches of what he observed. The findings were published in 1632, and the work caused an uproar. -
Rene Descartes
Descartes was a true leader of the SR. His ideas led to major advances in math, science, and philosophy. He felt that no assumptions should be made without questions. Descartes stated that all assumptions had to be proven with known facts. He believed that his own existence was proven by the fact that he was thinking. From this he created a method of questioning and the questioning was followed by clear reasoning. He made a description of how light reflects off a surface area. -
Robert Boyle
Boyle helped pioneer chemistry, which is now a popular modern science. Chemistry studies how the composition of matter can change. IN 1662, Boyle discovered that temperature and pressure affects the space that a gas can occupy -
Antoine Lavoisier
Other than naming the element oxygen, Lavoisier showed that fire resulted when a substance was rapidly combined with oxygen. Before this, people believed that fire was an element. Lavoisier also showed that steam mixes with the air, and becomes invisible. In doing this, he also proved that matter can change from, but it cannot be created, or destroyed. The idea is known as the law of conservation of matter. It is one of the most important principles in the study of chemistry. -
To wrap it up
The store of human knowledge and understanding had increased beyond measure, and in such a brief amount of time. Actually, the fact that the speed of discovery was so rapidly spread and the exchange of knowledge was important to the SR. These resulted in time to the printing press, and the rise of scientific societies. It also opened windows for creating the technology we have today.
