om the traditional Christian beliefs, brought along with it a uprising of Rationalistic views. Rationalism is a theory that contends that the most fundamental knowledge is based on reason and the truth is found by rational analysis of ideas. One of the first influential rationalistic scientist was Roger Bacon. Bacon?s most consequential concept was the Scientific Method, a method of gathering and interpreting information that follows a fixed pattern of research. One of the effects of his Method was that it quickened the pace of scientific discovery. Also, it changed the way that new scientific knowledge was judged and accepted. One of the first scientists to use the new Scientific Method was Galileo Galilei. Galileo was a pioneer of modern physics and telescopic astronomy. The discovery of the telescope was the turning point of his career. With his discovery he was able give birth to a new science of planetary motion. That science was the basis for his belief that w!
e lived in a “Heliocentric” Universe, or sun centered universe in which the planets revolve around a relatively stationary sun, instead of a Geocentric Universe. This radical new idea brought the RCC to bring him before the Religious court and condemn him as a heretic. Another influential scientist was Sir Isaac Newton. Newton made contributions to every major area of scientific and mathematical area of study of his generation. His most significant mathematical discovery was laying the foundation for elementary differential and integral Calculus. The exploration of light and physics were the areas of study that Newton is most famous for. His greatest achievement in the optical field was the discovery that white light is not a simple homogeneous entity, but rather a mixture of many different types of rays. Newton?s most noted discoveries are in the area of Physics and celestial mechanics. Those discoveries were the basis for his three Laws of Motion. In the end, the !
rationalist ideas of the great scientists of the time and the general rationalistic attitude of the people all played a crucial role in causing the Scientific Revolution.
Sir Francis Bacon urged scientists to follow a fixed pattern of research, because of this he developed the Scientific Method. The first step of the Scientific Method was careful examination and observation through experimentation; the second step called for the use of reason to interpret the results. From this scientists could draw valid conclusions with which could be tested for further experimentation. Bacon?s method used inductive reasoning, acquiring knowledge by observation, unlike the Greek method of deductive reasoning, using accepted generalizations and then with reason finding the specific details, which totally avoided experimentation. The impact of the Scientific Method was felt in two major ways. First off, because of the method?s ability to better analyze how nature really worked, it largely speed up the rate of scientific discovery. Then, more importantly, it changed the way knowledge was judged and accepted. Soon the educated public no longer accepted !
explanations that were rooted in miracles, supernatural powers, or magic. The Scientific Method, reason, and mathematical logic became the only acceptable source for reliable knowledge. The Scientific Method along with the Heliocentric theory became the foundation of the Scientific Revolution and is still widely used today.
Galileo Galilei was one of the first scientists to use the Scientific Method. Amazingly Galileo first entered the University of Pisa as a medical student, but he soon became interested in mathematics and left without a degree in 1585. Word of a new invention that would magnify distant objects in Holland had caught Galileo?s attention. With a detailed description of the device, Galileo set out improve on it and use it in his studies. By 1609 Galileo had a 20x magnification telescope that he used to see the lunar mountains, the stars of the Milky Way, and previously unnoted “planets” revolving around Jupiter. Galileo is also credited with finding the strange phenomenon that would later be known as the rings of Saturn. Galileo published his findings and was met with immediate opposition from other scientists until they could build their own telescopes to prove his findings. He was made court mathematician at Florence, Italy, freeing him to further pursue his research. H!
e observed that the planets do revolve around the sun and became a firm believer in the Heliocentric World System. He was vigorously opposed by the Christian church because the Bible was seen as supporting the Geocentric Theory. Despite his argument the RCC issued a edict, or religious law, against Copernicanism, or the Heliocentric theory. Following this Galileo turned his attention to his earlier studies of motion. He was trying to develop the laws of motion necessary in a Heliocentric universe. His studies of brought him very close the laws of inertia and acceleration, the first two laws to be discovered later by Isaac Newton. One of the better known physical laws attributed to Galileo is his Law of Falling Bodies. His law says that two objects of different weights will still fall at the same rate. He proved this in a public demonstration at the tower or Pisa by dropping two cannonballs of largely different weights off the tower. Everyone was amazed when both balls!
landed simultaneously. Galileo is equally remembered for his confrontation with the RCC. Galileo was ordered to never teach or defend Copernicanism in public and to denounce his own belief in it. In June 1633, Galileo was condemned to life imprisonment for “vehement suspicion of heresy”. Galileo?s sentence was swiftly commuted to house arrest. Galileo continued his studies in the hopes that his successors would peruse it. Galileo?s discoveries would play an important role in the Scientific Revolution.
Sir Isaac Newton made fundamental contributions to every major area of science and mathematical concern of his generation including, Calculus, optics, gravitation, and astronomy. Newton Laid the foundation for elementary differential and integral Calculus. The “method of fluxions,” as he termed it, was the basis on his crucial insight that the integration of a function, or finding the area under its curve, is merely the inverse procedure to differentiating it, or finding the slope of a curve at ant point. Even though Newton could not fully justify his methods, rigorous logical foundations for the Calculus were not developed until the nineteenth century, he receives the credit for developing a powerful tool of problem solving and analysis in pure mathematics and Physics. During the plague years Newton had made a revolutionary discovery. He had reached the conclusion that white light is not a simple, homogeneous entity, as natural philosophers since Aristotle had believed. !
When he passed a thin beam of sunlight through a glass prism he noticed the oblong spectrum of colors, red, yellow, green, blue, and violet, that formed on the wall opposite. Newton showed that the spectrum was too long to be explained by the accepted theory of the refraction, or bending, of light by dense media. Newton argued that white light is really a mixture of different types of rays, that the different types of rays are refracted at slightly different angles, and that each different type of ray is responsible for producing a given spectrum color. These discoveries led Newton to the logical conclusion that telescopes using refracting lenses could never overcome the distortions of chromatic dispersion. He therefore proposed and constructed the first reflecting telescope which the prototype for today?s largest and most advanced optical telescopes. Newton?s greatest achievement was his works in Physics and Celestial Mechanics, which culminated in the Theory of Univer!
sal Gravitation. The well known story that Isaac Newton discovered Universal Gravitation when an apple fell from a tree onto his head is a myth. Newton succeeded in showing that a body moving in an elliptical path and attracted to one focus must indeed be drawn by a force that varies as the inverse square of the distance. He further demonstrated that the planets were attracted toward the sun by a force varying as the inverse square of the distance and generalized that all heavenly bodies mutually attract on another. Thus he reached his three laws of motion:
1)Law of Inertia
Every body persists in a state of rest or uniform motion in a strait line unless compelled to change such a state by an impressing force.
2)Law of Acceleration
The change of motion of a body is proportional to the force acting upon it and takes and takes place in the direction of the strait line along which that force is impressed. To every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
3)Law of Gravitation
Every body in the universe attracts any other body with a force directly proportional to the square of the distance between them.
Given the law of gravitation and the laws of motion, Newton could explain a wide range of phenomena such as the eccentric orbits of comets, the cause of tides and their major variations, The precession of the Earth?s axis, and the perturbation, or variations in it?s orbit, of the motion of the Moon by the gravity of the Sun. Newton?s discoveries and laws play a vital role in most all sciences today and played a crucial part in the Scientific Revolution.
Rationalism played the most important role in the Scientific revolution. Without the rationalistic views of Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and Sir Isaac Newton science would never had taken shape the way it did. Francis Bacon developed the Scientific Method which would lay down a path for future scientists. Galileo Galilei used Bacon?s method to prove that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun, rather than the Sun and planets revolving around the Earth. He also improved on the technology of the telescope to aid in the observation of the cosmos. Sir Isaac Newton improved on Galileo?s idea of the Heliocentric universe be proving that the planets moved in an elliptical path. Newton brought his three laws of motion to the sciences to explain the motion and gravitation of all matter in the universe. He also contributed to optical science by proving that white light is really a mixture of many different rays each reflecting a different color. This discovery al!
lowed him to improve the optical telescope, improvements that exist in today?s most advanced telescopes. All three of these scientists shaped how the public viewed the universe we live in. The rationalistic views of the public together with the rationalistic beliefs of the scientists of the time helped shape the Scientific Revolution.