The first bold step in the Scientific Revolution was taken by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). In De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, published in the year of his death, Copernicus suggested a new explanation of the apparent motions of heavenly bodies. Following the hypothesis of Aristarchus, Copernicus put the sun in the center of the motionless sphere of the fixed stars and had the planets (including the earth) move in concentric circles around it. The moon circled the earth, which rotated around its own axis and also slowly changed the direction of its axis. The heliocentric system of Copernicus challenged (and eventually replaced) the Ptolemaic system that had stationary earth as its center. The heliocentric theory gave modern astronomy a new direction but it did not remove the complexity that cumbered the Ptolemaic system. To reconcile the circular and uniform planetary motion with the available observational evidence, Copernicus also had to amend his system with epicycles and eccentricity of the planets' orbits in relation to the sun (Jeans, Growth 128-29). The real significance of the heliocentric system lay in the long-term changes, which it effected. "Major upheavals in the fundamental concepts of science, occur by degrees. The work of a single individual may play a preeminent role in such a conceptual revolution, but if it does, it achieves preeminence either because, like De Revolutionibus, it initiates revolution by a small innovation which presents science with new problems, or because like Newton's Principia, it terminates revolution by integrating concepts deriving from many sources" (Copernican Revolution 182). The Copernican exposition of celestial mechanics may appear less impressive than the Newtonian, but without one the other would not have been possible.

The Scientific Revolution was the single most important factor in the creation of the new worldview of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. Many ideas were brought into light that changed views and perceptions of the world. The most important idea of the enlightenment was that the methods of natural science could be used to examine and understand all aspect of life. This is what the intellectuals meant reason. Nothing was to be accepted on faith. Everything was to be submitted to the rational, critical, scientific way of thinking. However this brought the Enlightenment into a conflict with churches, which rested their beliefs on authority of the Bible and Christian theology. Another key of the enlightenment was the scientific method was capable of discovering laws of human society as well as those of nature. This led to the birth of social science. This led to that of progress. With the skills needed to discover laws of human existence, Enlightment thinker believed it was possible for humans to create better societies and people. Therefore the enlightenment was secular. It revived and established the Renaissance on worldly ideas. Enlightenment in return had a huge effect on the culture and thought of urban middle classes and aristocracy. However it did not appeal to the poor and peasants. These groups were confident in old popular beliefs that enlightenment was trying to change.

The Scientific Revolution brought many new ideas and beliefs not only to Europe but the entire world. The most widely influential was an epistemological transformation that we call the "Scientific Revolution." In the popular mind, we associate this revolution with natural science and technological change, but the scientific revolution was, in reality, a series of changes in the structure of European thought itself: systematic doubt, empirical and sensory verification, the abstraction of human knowledge into separate sciences, and the view that the world functions like a machine. These changes greatly changed the human experience of every other aspect of life, from individual life to the life of the group. This modification in worldview can also be charted in painting, s

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