galileo
Hearing early in 1609 that a Dutch optician, named Lippershey, had produced an instrument by which the apparent size of remote objects was magnified, Galileo at once realized the principle by which such a result could alone be attained, and, after a single night devoted to consideration of the laws of refraction, he succeeded in constructing a telescope which magnified three times, its magnifying power being soon increased to thirty-two. This instrument being provided and turned towards the heavens, the discoveries, which have made Galileo famous, were bound at once to follow, though undoubtedly he was quick to grasp their full significance. The moon was shown not to be, as the old astronomy taught, a smooth and perfect sphere, of different nature to the earth, but to possess hills and valleys and other features resembling those of our own globe. The planet Jupiter was found to have satellites, thus displaying a solar system in miniature, and supporting the doctrine of Copernicus. It had been argued against the said system that, if it were true, the inferior planets, Venus and Mercury, between the earth and the sun, should in the course of their revolution exhibit phases like those of the moon, and, these being invisible to the
Everything in history has its cause, its reason for happening and nothing goes unnoticed. In this case the Scientific Revolution was the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, which eventually led to the French Revolution and the American Revolution. What was the Scientific Revolution and why was it such an important time in the history of Europe? The Scientific Revolution changed people's perception of the world around them, the medieval view of the Universe was destroyed, and a new, completely different cosmology was created. The medieval cosmology was based on a mixture of theories derived from ancient Greed thinkers and Christian thought. Aristotle believed that "the heavens were unchangeable, and therefore, they were better than the earth. The sun, moon, and planets were all faultless spheres, unblemished, and immune from decay. Their motion was circular because the circle was the perfect form of motion. The earth was the center of the universe because it was the heaviest planet and because it was at the center of the Great Chain of Being, between the underworld of spirits and the upper world of gods" (Kishlansky, 554-555). Ptolemy used this idea to develop his theory of a geocentric universe, where the Earth was at the center and all the other planets rotated around it. This view was easily incorporated in the Christianity and helped make a clear distinction between the Earth and the Heavens. The obvious problems with Aristotle's theories were overlooked and other questions were explained by the idea of Heaven and Earth. The Scientific Revolution shattered the tied between science and religion. Revolutionary thinkers, such as Copernicus (1473-1543), who stated that we lived in a heliocentric universe, and Kepler (1571- 1630), who developed the three laws of planetary motion, radically changed the views of the pre-revolution period. Copernicus' heliocentric universe disproved the beliefs of Aristotle and Ptolemy, which were the partial basis of the medieval cosmology. Kepler's three laws of planetary motion proved that planets have elliptical orbits, that a planet's velocity is not uniform, and brought the planets together into a unified mathematical system. Other great thinkers such as Galileo (1564-1642) and Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) helped to develop a new cosmology not dominated by Christian belief and the Heavens. Newton's Law of Gravitation changed ideas about the motion of an object. It showed that the laws and forces of motion at work in nature determined the motion of a body. Galileo used his self-built telescope to observe the universe and deduce that heavenly bodies undergo change and that there was no distinction between the Heavens and Earth. All of these ideas were quite contrary to the cosmology of the medieval times. These ideas were dangerous and destructive to the Christian religion. The cosmology adequately explained the movement of the planets and the role of our own Earth in the universe. However, this theory did not account for the presence of God as an unchanging part of the universe. The scientists did not attempt to disprove the accepted views of the church, few of them saw any contradiction between their research and their faith, but were accused of heretic teaching. They were persecuted, forced to renounce their ideas and even killed for the work they did to explain the world around us. This did not stop any of them from continuing their quest for knowledge. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the new science had firmly established itself in Europe. The wealthy noble patrons of scientists provided the equipment and the cost of the experiments, thus supporting the further development of scientific learning. The Scientific Revolution was beneficial for many reasons. The development of the scientific method helped start research in areas like medicine, biology, alchemy, and physics. The scientific thought put an end to centuries of superstition and allowed many people feel a sense of contr
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3146
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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