Scientific Revolution in the 17th Century: Major Changes

The scientific revolution, like most revolutions in manis way of looking at the world was rooted in the past. The scientific revolution manly took place in the seventeenth century, and it brought changes in humanityis view of itself, nature, and God. Newton had many ancestors. Greek philosophers were the first to develop science, and then they passed their scientific concepts on to their disciples, the Romans. Once scientific methods were known, not even the Middle Agels preference for religion over philosophy could slow its evolution.

Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton were very important catalystis in advancing not only science, but society as well.

One of the most instrumental moments in modern science occurred in the career of Galileo Galilei. In 1609 Galileo borrowed an idea from the Dutch, which allowed him to design and build a telescope. This telescope allowed him to see the heavens more closely. With his invention of the telescope Galileo discovered many things no human had ever seen before.

He discovered the moons of Jupiter. He also studied more closely than ever before the heavenly symbols of the sun and moon. He found that the sun had changing spots, and that the moon seemed to have mountains. It didnat take long before Galileo realized that his observations supported the heliocentric view of the solar system.

Isaac Newton provided the synthesis which became the model of science for the next several centuries. During Newtonis younger years he worked on the problem of motion. When Isaac reached his twenties he developed the theory of gravity which claimed that the planets moved in the manner described by Johannes Kepler.

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Kepler calculated the orbits of the planets to be ellipses. Newton then attempted to unite Galileols and Kepleris laws in a unified theory. He did manage to do so in his famous law of gravity. Newtonis law stated that the force of gravity between two bodies was inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Newton said that the force which holds the planets in orbit was the same force that causes bodies to fall to the earth. Like Galileo, Newton realized that he was challenging more than just theories about the movement of the earth. The relationship between man and God was at stake as well. Newton affirmed at the end of his scientific masterwork of 1687 that the world was organized by a charitable and wise God. Newton and his contemporaries viewed the universe as a machine. This model saw the universe as orderly, coherent, and natural. God was viewed as the creator of this machine, who brought into being the world in its lawfulness, regularity, and beauty. This image viewed God as the master builder who created a perfect machine and then let it run. This view of God was called Deism, and was accepted by many who supported the ” new philosophy.”

The scientific revolution greatly advanced humanityis understanding of itself. With the acceptance of the Newtonian cosmology, it was agreed that the universe was orderly, and it was the role of the scientist to discover that order. Humanity was seen by some to have diminished after the scientific revolution because human beings were no longer at the center of the universe, others saw humanity being raised to a higher level than ever.

This coalition of science and philosophy was of great importance to the scientific revolution. It led the great minds of the age into scientific inquiry and gave science the endorsement of reason. It made the work of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton not a series of accidental discoveries, but steps in a cumulative process to understand the universe in which we live.