World History / Unit 7: Absolutism, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment
7.4 The Scientific Revolution
Notes
From about 1543 to 1700, thinkers used observation, experiments and mathematics to understand nature, challenging older authorities like Aristotle and the Church.
- Geocentric theory: the old idea, supported by Ptolemy, that Earth is the center of the universe.
- Nicolaus Copernicus (1543) proposed the heliocentric theory: Earth and planets orbit the Sun.
- Johannes Kepler showed that planets move in elliptical (oval) orbits.
- Galileo Galilei used a telescope to observe Jupiter's moons and supported Copernicus. In 1633 the Church put him on trial and forced him to take back his views.
- Isaac Newton described the laws of motion and universal gravitation in his Principia (1687).
- Francis Bacon and René Descartes helped develop the scientific method: observe, form a hypothesis, test with experiments, and draw conclusions.
- Vesalius studied human anatomy, and William Harvey described the circulation of blood.
- Earlier work by Muslim, Greek and Indian scholars helped make these discoveries possible.
Practice
The heliocentric theory states that:
Copernicus argued for a Sun-centered system.
Why was Galileo put on trial in 1633?
The Church then taught the geocentric view.
A scientist predicts that a plant will grow faster with more light, tests this with two groups of plants and records results. She is using:
Hypothesis, experiment and conclusion are steps of the scientific method.
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