The scientific revolution was a time period that spun over two centuries and included a series of discoveries in the field of science and mathematics that revolutionised the way the world was perceived from that moment forward. Opening many doors into what the future held, it also solved the unspoken mysteries of the past. Several logically derived answers were given to happenings, locations, ethinicities and functioning systems, that challenged what was supposedly already known at the time. Successive discoveries in the fields of chemistry, physics, biology, astronomy and mathematics paved the way for new ideas and lines of though tot enter society. Altering the mindset of people by providing factual evidence of various phenomena, scientists and discoverers were both sought after and simultaneously ostracised from society for their radical and norm-defying views and claims.
However, the drive and zeal that they harboured; their constant pursuit of decoding mysteries and their burning passion to find answers is what propelled the study of science in society and formed an entire era in human evolution – the era of modern science in the early modern period. In my paper, I am going to trace the path that science took along with the role of its agents, the discoverers, in the creation of the world that we have come to live in today.
One of the most prominent discoverers of the 16th century was Galileo Galilei. Born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564, Galileo was an astronomer, physicist, philosopher, engineer and mathematician. Often called the “father of modern physics”, the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of the scientific method”, and the “father of modern science”, he overturned the Aristotelian worldview, according to which the world could be explained primarily through logic. Aristotle had claimed that the velocity of falling objects was relative to their weight. However, even though the hypothesis logically seemed accurate, it was put to test by Galileo, who proved that all falling bodies moved at the same rate of acceleration. Aristotle claimed that falling bodies maintained a constant speed, while Galileo proved that speed increases in proportion to the distance of the fall. Unknowingly, this was the foundation of the principle of gravity that was put forward by Newton in a hypothesis several years later.
One of the most popular Aristotelian believes that Galileo shattered was that the Earth was the centre of the universe, while the stars, sun and planets are metaphysical beings that revolved around the it, known as Geocentrism. By biulding a modified version of the initial telescope, Galileo was able to discover four of Jupiter’s moons, thus proving that celestial objects can orbit something other than the Earth. Galileo then concluded that the laws of physics apply equally throughout the universe. This conclusion was faulty, as proven later in the years to come, the gravity pull of the moon is far less than that of the earth being just one example to refute this claim (Koyré, 106). Galileo’s discovery confirmed the theory od heliocentrism previously put forward by Polish mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus (Finocchiaro & Galilei 1991, pp. 70), and put forward even before him by the French Bishop Nicole Oresme, that argued that despite appearances, the sun neither rises or sets – it is the Earth that is orbiting the sun.
Galileo’s thory of tides
His theory of inertia contradicted then valid knowledge that a moving object came to rest because it desired to be in its natural state, and proposed that this came about because of an external force acted upon it. This theory was further modified by Kepler and Newton, but has come to be known as the basic and fundamental theory of mordern physics. Science aims and expressing everything by ‘number, figure and motion’, and though Galileo did not fully understand or express this, his work was implicitly based on this principle (Koyré, 106).
At the time of these discoveries, revolutions and innovations were not always rewarded. Unfortunately for Galileo, he was subjected to punishment as at that time the Church could not be convinced that Heliocentricism did not contradict the Bible, and was put under terminal confinement along with his work banned from being published. Though years later his discoveries and theories were considered to be the most fundamental to modern understanding of the world, Galileo has several flaws in the thories he proposed. Nevertheless, Galileo’s paradigm-shifting contribuitions to a scientific method which is based on experiments is the reason why he is considered by many historians the “father of modern physics”.
Copernicus, who proposed the theory of heliocentrism, was supported by Galileo in the claims that he made (Finocchiaro & Galilei 1991, pp. 76). However, two important links that helped in the estalishment of Heliocentrism in mordern geology and astronomy were in two great mathematicians, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.
Tycho Brahe was a Dutch atronomer and alchemist that set up two of the most state-of-the-art research labs of the day on a his private research island, Hven, given to him by the Danish King. Within this scientific empire, Tycho and his staff produced some of the most precise naked eye observation of the night sky ever made in history. He believed in a geo-heliocentric cosmos. In this model, the sun orbits around the Earth, but the other planets orbit around the Sun. Essentially problematic as this model placed the sun in a colision path with some planets, Tycho’s model helped solve some mathematical dead-ends that astronomers were reaching. The Tychonic model payed off in other ways, documenting stars that moved in ‘streaks’, known as comets. He also noted a new star in the night sky, a ‘nova stella’, which we now call a supernova. He noted that this new star did not have any stellar parallax, which meant that the star was very distant from the Earth. He contradicted the Biblical theory and showed that the heaven could change, new stars could be formed, which played an important role in changing the mindset of the Church. After Tycho’s death, his close collaborator and student, Johannes Kepler, was ordered to continue his work (Kayré, 115).
Kepler’s claim to fame is his work Atronomia Nova, that was published in 1609. Establishing laws governing how planets move, the movement of Mars was noted for a decade post which mathematical formulae were derived so as to predict its movements in the future. The first law stated that every planet has an elliptical orbit, with the sun at one of the two foci of the ellipse, not its center. The second law explained that even though the speed at which a planet revolves around the Sun will vary – because the planet will travel faster when it is closer to the Sun – one can still find a constant speed for the planet called the area speed. His third law showed the relationship between the distance from planets to the the Sun and their orbital periods. This represented a clear break with Aristotle, Ptolemy and a millennium of Christian thought. Though complicated and faulty in its understanding, the laws showed that planets did move at non-uniform speeds and that could be calculated by careful observation and mathematical derivation. These claims, proofs, theories and studies gave Galileo the foundation he needed to go the final step and put forwards his astronomical theories.
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