THE “SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION,” ORTHE CROOKED PATH TOWARD NEWTONIAN PHYSICS

1543Copernicus publishes On the Revolution of Heavenly Bodies

1576 Tycho Brahe builds an observatory

1609Johannes Kepler proposes the model of elliptical orbits around the sun

1632Galileo Galilei publishes the Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World (only accepted by the Vatican in 1984)

1637 Descartes, Discourse on Method

1687Sir Isaac Newton publishes the Principia mathematica, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

The Ptolemaic, geocentric

theory of the universe

The apparent path of Mars, as seen from the earth in 2005/06

The model of “epicycles” developed byPtolemaic astronomers

Illustration from Copernicus, The Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies (1543)

Tycho Brahe’s underground observatory at Stellaborg (1580)

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), observing the

heavens

The models of Ptolemy, Copernicus, & Brahe (1600)

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) solved

the problem by postulating elliptical

orbits

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620): “Many will travel, and knowledge will be increased.”

René Descartes, author of the Discourse on Method

(1637)

Portrait of Galileo Galilei (1563-1642)

Galileo’s map of the moon, 1609:The telescope showed that the moon was subject to decay

The Aristotelian theory of “impetus” –Galileo postulated the principle of “inertia” instead

The principle of “inertia” suggested a new approach to both ballistics and celestial mechanics, vector analysis

Galileo published his

Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the

World in 1632

Otto von Guericke demonstrates the power of the vacuum (Magdeburg, 1663)

A physician & monk rebuke a barber/surgeon for performing a dissection

Andreas Vesalius dissecting a

cadaver(1547)

Portrait of William Harvey (1578-1657),

who discovered the pulmonary circulation of

the blood

Thomas Hobbes

(1588-1679): “In the state of nature, the life

of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish

and short.”

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651): “Man is but a machine…”

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727),

who discovered the universal law of

gravitation, the three laws of

thermodynamics, & differential calculus;

he published the Principia

Mathematica in 1687.

Newton’s range of interests: calculus,

monetary exchange rates, and New

Testament Greek

The ornate tomb of Sir Isaac Newton in

Westminster Abbey

The Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, 1698, founded by King Louis XIV