where in the world is the world? the scientific world of the 17 th and 18 th centuries

Where in the world is the

world?The Scientific World of the 17th and 18th

centuries.

The objectives of this slide show are

• You will understand the impact of the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton

• You will assess in what ways the ancient scholars limited scientific inquiry.

• You will judge for yourself the risk that these scientists took to publish their findings.

If we remember, the Catholic church

had “folded” into its doctrine

various classical

scholars. This was done quite early to “win” over pagan converts.

Aristotle

•Made proclamations, then proceeded to explain why it was so.

•The result was knowledge was set in stone.

•The conclusions were made before extensive observation.

Ptolemy 85-165 a.d.

•The sun revolves around the earth

•Used fabricated data•But, once again, accepted

and embraced by the early Catholic church

Ptolemy developed certain astronomical theories and discovered that they were not consistent with observation. Instead of abandoning the theories, he deliberately fabricated observations from the theories so that he could claim that the observations prove the validity of his theories. In every scientific or scholarly setting known, this practice is called fraud, and it is a crime against science and scholarship.

Here’s what Isaac Newton said about Ptolemy:

Copernicus was born in Krakow, Poland in 1473 and lived until

1543.

People began to question the Catholic idea of the universe. They began to observe, write down, and publish what they

learned.

His famous book was the “Revolution of Heavenly Orbs”

He came to the conclusion that the earth and the planets revolved around the sun.

There is a legend that the book was placed in his hands at his

death, because of its controversial content.

Shakespeare and Galileo were both born in 1564!

Galileo invented a telescope

that helped Venetian

merchants set prices.

The telescope enabled him to see the moons of Jupiter and the

craters of our moon.

He wrote about his

observations in “The

Starry Messenger” in 1610.

Up until that time, people thought the moon had a smooth surface, despite the shadows that could be seen with

the naked eye.

The observations were stunning.

The Catholic church was upset

about this information, and

saw it as an attack on their traditions.

The reformation and counter-reformation was in full

swing—and so the church

began to keep a secret file on Galileo for 17

years.

I hold that the Sun is located at the centre of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the Earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover ... I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system.

--Galileo.

Galileo was eventually brought up before the inquisition in 1633.

The charges were for heresy.

He was kept under house arrest

Even then, it was too late. . .with the invention of the

printing press, ideas were bouncing all over Europe.

And the year that Galileo died, 1642,, a baby boy was born who

would change the world. . .