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