Shaping of the Modern World

 

  Section 4

 

   Contents
   Readings
   Caucus
   Search
   Links
   Glossary
   Portraits
   Movies
Brooklyn College Core Curriculum:
The Shaping of the Modern World

Section 4:The Scientific Revolution: Copernicus to Newton

Introduction: This Week's Goals

Between the publication of Copernicus' On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs in 1543, which proposed that the earth and other planets went around the Sun but did not show how or why, and the publication of Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, which provided an all encompassing explanation, European thought about the natural world underwent a revolution.  This Scientific Revolution is just as much a definer of the modern world as the developments in politics we studied over the past two sections. There was, in fact, some connection between the parallel sets of developments: think, for example, of the use of the idea of "nature" in the work of thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

Note: Some of the readings for this section might seem a little tough. If so, just try to read a few of them well, especially the readings from Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.

By the end of this section you should:

  • Know how to define "scientific thought"
  • Be able to explain what the "Aristotelian-Ptolemaic" system was.
  • Be able to explain why mathematics was so important to the Scientific Revolution.
  • Be able to explain the roles of Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton.
  • Be able to explain the difference between "induction" and "deduction".
  • Understand why Isaac Newton's contribution can be said to have ended the "Scientific Revolution", and begun the period of "Classical Physics".
  • Be able to discuss the limits of Scientific Revolution.

Text

Kagan, 481-504

Multimedia

Images

Sources

For more sources, see Modern History Sourcebook: Scientific Revolution

Outline

I. Introduction

We are now starting on the great intellectual revolutions that lead to the modern world - The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.

We are going to look at the pre-modern ways of thinking that were the starting point for so many later developments.

This is looking at what we call intellectual history or the history of thought.

Chronological Framework

The chronology here overlaps. What is often see as the start of the Scientific Revolution, Copernicus in 1543, occurs at the same time as pre-modern religious wars are breaking out. By then end of the period, in 1687, Europe is about to embark on the Enlightenment, a cultural movement that largely rejected religion.

It is important to realize that people who are very advanced in one area of thought may be very archaic in other areas.

II. Before the Scientific Revolution

These include medieval traditions, and seeds of what was to come. Pre-modern ways of thought co-existed with what we call modern for long periods.

A. Scientific Thought

Science tries to explain the world without reference to gods. It sees the world as an object, or series of objects, and tries to explain how they move and interact.   Science is thus distinct from technology, which is a way of manipulating the world.  Many cultures had technological knowledge, but scientific thinking was first developed in an extensive way by the Ancient Greeks. It was Ancient Greek thought which dominated Europe up until the Scientific revolution.

The BIG issue for the Greeks was trying to explain how and why things moved. Since they believed everything happened for a reason, they thought there had to be an explanation for any motion at all. It was overturning this idea that was Isaac Newton's greatest triumph.

  • The Impact of Aristotle
    • Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
    • Aristotle, 384-322 BCE A great thinker in ancient Greece, he set ways of thinking for thousands of years.
    • He remained supreme in logic until the 19th century.
    • He was rediscovered in Europe in 13th century and he greatly affected scientific thought.
    • Science was only a part of what he did. He is also important as a founder of political science, literary criticism, biology, pure philosophy.
    • Notable Theories of Aristotle with regard to the Scientific Revolution
      • Motion
        For Aristotle rest is natural. There is motion only by continuous contact with mover. He needed angels to explain motion of the heavenly bodies.
      • Heaven and Earth
        The heavens are different stuff from Earth - light, airy and perfect.
      • Matter
        Earth, Air, Fire, Water, The idea comes from from Empedocles (d.c. 433BC)
    • Aristotle and the Church: Aristotle's ideas fitted in with some religious theories. Also due to great influence of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) he was given great regard in the Church.
  • The Ptolemaic System
    • Ptolemy (2nd Cent. CE) and 2
    • The Ptolemaic System
    • Ptolemy, 90-168AD (Claudius Ptolemaeus)  He was a Greek astronomer based in Alexandria in Egypt.
    • Astronomy
      Ptolemy's Almagest was basis of pre-modern astronomy. He based his system on Aristotle's theories. [Note that Ptolomy was 400 years later than Aristotle].
    • Aristotle needed the Earth to be center of Universe. Ptolemy explains everything else by cycles and epicycles - 80 in all. The whole universe revolves around the Earth.
    • Heavenly Spheres
      The idea of crystalline spheres was ancient (Anaximenes), but the idea of each planet and start being fixed on a crystal sphere grew more popular in the Middle Ages.
    • Planets.
      In this system it was not quite clear what the planets and stars were. The system was quite small. There was no real notion that the Sun was star and the Earth a planet.
    • Perfection
      Note the emphasis on perfection in both Aristotle and Ptolemy; the emphasis on the perfect sphere, and perfect motion in circles - this stuck for a long time.

B. Magical Thought

Magical thought is likely to see the world as filled and governed by spirits.  The goal then is to control or influence the world through such spirits.  In practice science was not clearly distinct from magic. One of main motives for intellectuals throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was to look back at the admired thinkers of the past (EMPHASIZE) so along with logic and the art of the past, the rather large amount of magical and symbolic thought of the past was retrieved.

  • Alchemy This involved trying to convert iron to gold or to find some elixir of life. It was based on Greek science. Chemistry was in fact a subject that did not advance for a long time, possibly because of an obsession with alchemy, but notion of mutability of matter was there.
  • Astrology This thought that events in the heavens effect events on Earth and was pre-Aristotelian, but Aristotle's idea of contiguous motion gave a scientific rationale to it. The idea of a Chain of Being is important here. It was fitted into a Christian world view by saying that the stars affected the lower nature of people, while the higher parts still had free will.
  • Witchcraft  There was a Witch craze in 16th and 17th century Europe. Old women were killed in the hundreds, especially in Scotland. The people at the time really believed that these women had magic powers. Very many people demons were in the air all around them.

C. Religious Thought

We now turn to religion. Religion united the intellectual elite and the people. From your reading you should have seen that the ways of thinking were not scientific for many. There was a pre-occupation was with God and especially SALVATION (getting to heaven). The thinkers we shall be examining as creators of the modern world lived in this background and often shared it. Copernicus was a Catholic priest for example, and Newton wrote far more about religion than about science.

  • The Reformation (First half of 16th Century)
    • Martin Luther (1483-1546)
      His main concern was with personal salvation.
      -Justification (setting right before God), was the most important thing for him.
    • John Calvin (1509-64)
      He advanced the Reformation in French speaking areas. Most of his thought is implicit in Luther, but Calvin was more rigorous. He held a doctrine of predestination to salvation or damnation. The Saved/Elect were a major part of his thought, which developed from his experience as a preacher and the problem of why did some not
      -Mention Calvinist Adherents
  • The Catholic or Counter Reformation
    • The Catholic Church reformed itself.
      Council of Trent (1545-63) -This re-established Catholic Norms of belief and behavior. It even cleared up previously undefined areas. It was very anti-Protestant.
      The Index banned books dangerous to orthodox thought - this was only really important now that there were many books about due to printing.
    • Consequences of Counter Reformation
      -      -The Counter Reformation made Catholic Countries firm in their Catholicism - and made it impossible for non-believers to live there.
      --Secondly it was much harder to express new opinions and ideas in Catholic Countries. Spain especially ceased to be important intellectually.
      --France was different. The French Church (the Gallican Church) was under royal control and some liberty of thought was allowed. But most of the new ideas that made the modern world grew up in Protestant countries and France. (Value of diversity of states in Europe).

D. Philosophical Thought

Philosophy - the love of wisdom - used to include what we now call "science." Nowadays, we use the word more to mean thinking about who to think.

  • Philosophy looks at ways of argument - at logic and how we know what we know. (Logic and Epistemology)
  • It looks at the World, and why it exists, whether God exists and what God is like. (Metaphysics)
  • It looks at Morality and at what is right and wrong, both for individuals and society. (Ethics and Politics)
  • Compare it to an Egg
    • The Shell - Logic
    • The White - Physics and Metaphysics
    • The Yolk - Ethics
  • Philosophy tries to tie these together - as we shall see the change in views about the nature of existence effects people's views on what is right in politics.
  • Medieval Philosophy
    • The dominant philosophy of the Middle Ages had been scholasticism. It was a rigorous and logical way of looking at the world, but had become  arid and pointless for many readers.
    • There was a period of torpor after Scholasticism. Intellectuals became involved in the Reformation.
  • Renaissance Platonism
    • The Renaissance produced no new great synthesis in philosophy such as scholasticism, but there was a very important revival of Platonism (NB Some students are studying Plato in other core clusters).
    • This was often seen as a sort of religion. It was far from a modern world view.
    • Mathematics 
      There was one major impact, though, of Renaissance thought. Plato, and another ancient thinker Pythagoras had emphasize mathematics. Plato thought math was the surest knowledge we have. He also emphasized simplicity, and LIKE ARISTOTLE the concept of Order. This was, as we shall see, going to influence all scientific thinkers.
  • Doldrums  It is important to note that as we approach the Modern period, philosophy as a subject was in the doldrums. Beginning with Descartes (1591-1650) philosophy was to be reborn.

Summary

There were a number of world views held by different people in the late Middles Ages and 16th century - some held by intellectuals, others more attached to popular thought. Also note that these ideas persisted for a long time, alongside more modern ones, for instance look at modern newspaper astrologers.

It was hard to break out of this view of the world. Great intellects had built it up and it took enormous breadth of knowledge imagination and even hubris to change it.

The changing of the Scientific world view, and the acceptance of science as a major source of knowledge, was the single most characteristic change that led to the modern world.

III. Origins of the Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was the prelude to the wider movement we call the Enlightenment.

Why is it a "Revolution"?

It was very slow, taking almost 150 years, but it completely altered old ways of thinking. It was also one of the most exiting adventures of the human mind.

For an important  discussion of the concept of "Scientific revolution", take a look at:

Causes of Scientific Revolution

  • Trade and Expansion of Trade Navigational problems of sea voyages generated scientific research. Overseas specimens aroused peoples interest in different worlds.
  • Medieval Universities Medieval universities were not all stuffy and unadventurous. In fact certain tendencies there made science a possible development. Without the study of ancient texts it would have taken much longer to get off the ground. Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and later Democritus were essential.
    Modern Science did not start from scratch but from breaking old models of the world.
    • The study of Aristotle. Aristotle as well as getting many things wrong had also had an inquiring mind, and had looked at what we now call science.
    • William Ockham. Ockham's Razor was and idea, an idea that cut away the surplus of much speculative thought.
      Simply put it was "Do not multiply entities more than necessary". In other words, make your explanations as simple as will fit the facts.
      We can note here both Copernicus' reasons for making the Sun the center of the Universe, and the tendency in science always to look for the most simple explanation.
    • The University of Padua was to prove a particularly important center for modern thought. It was under the control of Venice, a relatively free thinking city.
  • The Renaissance
    • Leonardo da Vinci and Plato's Mathematics.
      The Renaissance did bring forth a heightened interest in mathematics as part of influence of Plato.
    • The importance of the notion of Order goes back to the Iliad.
    • Also the idea of perfection in the heavens implies simplicity and this is an important notion in science.
    • We can see that it was the most mathematical sciences, astronomy and physics, that were most strongly effected by the Scientific revolution.
  • Renaissance Humanism The belief that there are no limits to human accomplishment (Pico de Mirandola). This, rather than more medieval ideas, was the precursor of modern ways of thinking.
  • Reformation The Reformation divided Europe. Science could go on in other countries when Catholic Hierarchy opposed it.

Summary

We have looked at the types of ideas people used in the middle ages and the 16th and 17th century to explain the world around them. We see there were elements  in the world of the time that pushed some to begin to break the mold of thinking. It was a mold of thinking that just did not continue to fit the observations. Discrepancy between observations and actuality is one of the springboards of the development of the history of science.

Because the ways of thinking were so set this is a story that lasts a century and a half, from an obscure Polish priest to one of the giants of modern science.

IV. Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)

With Copernicus the Scientific Revolution starts.

  • Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) and 2
  • Nicholas Copernicus: The Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, 1543
  • He was a Polish priest who studied in Renaissance Italy at the University of Padua - Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine and Theology made up the curriculum.
  • De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium On the Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies 1543
  • [Note the importance of printing - Da Vinci (1452-1519) knew all this but did not publish his results.]
  • The idea of a heliocentric [sun-centered] universe was a mental breakthrough, but did not offer explanations for the other things, such as motion, that Aristotle's' view of the world did. This had been the reason Ptolemy rejected it.
  • Copernicus' theory was based on very conservative mathematics and not on observation as such. Recall Platonists' obsession with simplicity and perfection. It was simpler to explain heavenly motion if the Sun was at the center. Copernicus offered it as a hypothesis. His way reduced the number of spheres from 80 to 34. He was still loyal to Ptolemy's system in many ways.
  • Copernicus was obsessed with perfect circular motion. He was wrong; he thought that planets moved in a perfect circle (not so), due to Platonic mathematics. But the important thing was Copernicus' mental breakthrough. He was wrong but was the stimulus for future scientists to come up with something better.

V. Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) Danish Royal Astrologer.

  • Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)and 2
  • Brahe's System
  • Brahe set new standards in observation without a telescope. (There were no street lights or pollution and it was easier to see sky then than now.) He disbelieved Copernicus because his observations showed that planets did not move in perfect circles.
  • In 1572-73 a new star appeared (the Crab Nebula?) and in 1577 a new comet. This went right through any supposed crystal spheres. Neither event sat well with the idea of perfect unchangeable heavens,
  • Brahe thus junked the idea of perfect circular motion, and the idea of fixed spheres in the heavens.

VI. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

  • Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
  • Johannes Kepler: Laws of Planetary Motion, [At Hawaii]
    A web page illustrating the laws in diagrams
  • He was a student of mathematics and astronomy and a student of Brahe.
  • He put Brahe's observations into order. His method was to test hypothesis after hypothesis until he came up with an answer that worked. Eventually he came up with the idea that planets move in ellipses.
  • His Three Laws of Planetary Motion corrected Copernicus in light of Brahe's observations. Note also the beginning of the use of the idea of scientists discovering laws.
    • Planets move in ellipses - of which Sun is one focus.
    • One law: An equal area of the plane is covered in equal time by planet revolving around the Sun. (or the period of revolution around the sun is proportional to distance from the Sun.)
  • Kepler had no explanation of why this was the case. In fact he was involved in number mysticism and explained it as part of the mystery of numbers.

The old Aristotelian system was broken, but there was no new synthesis to replaces it. Constructing a new, equally persuasive synthesis was the achievement of the Scientific Revolution.

VI. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Italian. He also studied at Padua, which was a hotbed of scientific discussion, on both the cause of motion and the scientific method. Galileo was also a mathematician, and was also keen on Archimedes (who was translated in 1543).

There are two main aspects of his work to note.

  • Astronomy
    • He used a telescope for better observation c. 1609. He was not however the first to do so.
    • his confirmed the heliocentric system. There were also surprises, like seeing the Moon with scars on, seeing sun spots. This was in a supposedly perfect heaven. The difference between Earth and the heavens was disappearing.
    • What was really important was that he tied in astronomy to motion on Earth, which had also been the great achievement of Aristotle's system.
  • Motion on Earth
    • Galileo also did experiments about motion on Earth. Recall Aristotle's' notion of contiguous motion.
    • There is the story of Galileo dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to see if heavy things really did fall faster as predicted by Aristotle. (Of course not. Gravity works on each particle separately.) 1591. This is probably not true, but Galileo did argue on the basis of tying two objects together and asking if they would fall more quickly.
    • There is also the story of him watching a pendulum swing in Siena Cathedral.
  • 1638 - Discourse on Two New Sciences
    • at first passed Church Censors.
    • What Galileo did here was more important than the debate over astronomy.
    • HE IMAGINED MOTION WITHOUT ANY OF THE CONSTRAINTS IT FACES IN THE REAL WORLD - A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WHICH BREAKS THE MOLD.
    • He based his theories on observation, but would go beyond observation to the truth, since he recognized the constraints on simple observation.
    • Notion of inertia - a body continues to move unless it is stopped - vital. Not fully developed by Galileo. He thought motion was naturally in a circular direction, rather than a straight line. Also he still had the old medieval idea of impetus in his head.
  • Galileo still did not offer a convincing explanation of heavenly motion. But his importance was that he attacked the whole Aristotelian system. He saw the need for an entirely new view.

Conflict with the Church

In 1600, Giordano Bruno had been burnt for suggesting a plurality of worlds, and other heresies. This had led to an intensification of fear about Copernicus' ideas just before Galileo became active.

  • Letter to the Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615 [the main text to discuss this week]
    Galileo argued for separation of theology and science on the grounds that God endowed us with reason.
  • Opposition to Galileo
  • 1616 - hearings by Inquisition.
  • 1632 Dialogue on Two World Systems
  • 1633 - Galileo was banned by the Church and put under house arrest. Decree from Holy Office, which is not always infallible, says that it is heresy to believe the Sun is at the center of the Universe. Galileo recanted to save his neck.
  • Was Galileo Totally Right?  There were real problems in his use of scriptures.This was especially true for Bellarmine. Galileo was persistent - he raised the ire of the curia. Some supported him, including Pope Urban VIII.

Opposition in Catholic Countries to Science?

  • Italy and Spain
  • There was more freedom in France (Gallicanism), England and Holland (value of divisions in Europe.)
  • The University of Padua was under Venice, the most anti-clerical state in Europe, Copernicus, Galileo, and the medical men Vassalius and William Harvey all studied there.
  • Protestants had been as hostile to Copernicus as Catholics, on biblical grounds, but there was less state control in Protestant countries, and in the end Protestantism became more liberal than it was at first.

VII. The Problem of Method in Science

As well as all this growth of practical knowledge, there were some thinkers considering scientific method. Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes were especially important. Both decided that all previous beliefs (outside religion) had to be ignored.

A. Francis Bacon (1561-1625) and Induction

  • Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and 2
  • Francis Bacon: Preface to the Novum Organum
  • English Lord Chancellor.
  • It should be noted that he had an enthusiasm for the application of science; for Bacon science was power - HE PROMOTED THE MODERN IDEA OF PROGRESS.
  • 1620 Novum Organum (New Tools)
  • The Inductive Method; make a lot of observations and then generalize rules of nature. This leads to scientific observation as a method.
  • What problems can you see? (set by David Hume) - Basically THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON TO GO ARGUE FROM ANY AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE TO A GENERAL LAW. THIS IS THE "PROBLEM OF INDUCTION"
  • Problem of Induction
    • Basically science is not logical, at least in its observational mode, but this does not mean it is false.
    • One important modern philosopher of science, Karl Popper, suggests that science proceeds by hypothesizing a reasonable model and then seeing if it fits the evidence. Science does not then discover natural laws but suggests models of the world, although many scientists have thought they were in fact discovering natural laws, and this may have been an essential part of there outlook.
    • The process we have been discussing here in fact shows this process of creating new models.
  • Bacon and Mathematics Bacon's great problem was that he never understood the importance of mathematics, which is deductive not inductive since it proceeds from theorems to axioms without empirical observation. Also, although experimentation became the watchword of science, a lot of the breakthroughs in the Scientific revolution were in astronomy and mechanics, and these were mental breakthroughs.

B. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) and Deduction

Descartes was a great mathematician and philosopher for instance he showed the any algebraic formula could be plotted on a graph. This was a linking of algebra, which was Hindu and Arab mathematics, with Geometry, which was the great Greek contribution to mathematics. It was very important in the future methods of science.

He also looked at what way to get knowledge. IE at the study of epistemology.

  • René Descartes (1561-1626)
  • Discourse on Method, 1637
  • He advanced the notion of DEDUCTION to get some certain knowledge (such as that you know you yourself exist and work from there).
  • He stressed Mathematics was a general science, applicable to all other sciences which were concerned with order and measurement. Note the Platonism here, the stress on Mathematics as away to knowledge.
  • This was GOOD in that it stressed Mathematics in science, but BAD in that it seemed to allow little room for testing ideas in the real world.
  • In fact Descartes was not totally against observation,but his emphasis was different from Bacon.

VIII. Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

A professor at Cambridge, Newton was quite possibly the greatest scientist who ever lived.  He was born the day Galileo died.

  • Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and 2
  • Principia Mathematica, 1687 (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy)
    • It brought together Galileo's discoveries about motion on Earth, and Kepler's discoveries about motion in the heavens.
    • He also brought together the Baconian stress on generating laws by inductive arguing from experience and Descartes' stress on deducing new ideas from things known well.
    • To do this Newton had to invent calculus.
    • Newton provided an explanation for heavenly motion that was tied to observed properties of motion on Earth. (Galileo + Kepler)
    • And he generalized laws from these observations, but based laws based on mathematics. Newton had read Descartes and in fact attacked him, but uses his mathematical approach. (Bacon + Descartes)
  • A Better Synthesis than Aristotle
    • So at last there was a synthesis better than that provided by Aristotle. Newton accounted for motion throughout the Universe.
    • Newton also had to attack Descartes view on a plenum of matter, with vortices moving the planets.
    • Newton's explanation was based on idea of Inertial Movement and Gravity.
    • With the concept of inertia, you no longer had to explain motion, you only had to explain change.
    • All bodies moved as if every particle attracted every other particle with a force proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
    • NOTE THAT THIS IS NEVER THE CASE IN THE REAL WORLD. NEWTON'S GENIUS WAS TO IMAGINE MOTION OUTSIDE THE REAL WORLD OF IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION, AND A WORLD OF VERY MANY PARTICLES, AND TO IMAGINE A UNIVERSE WITH ONLY TWO PARTICLES, BUT TO BASE THAT IMAGINATION ON OBSERVATION.
  • 1672 Jean Picard, a Frenchman observed Mars from Paris and Cayenne, and worked out its altitude. This helped Newton in his calculations.
  • Newton could not explain why gravity existed.
  • Newton still had room for God; and he was very pious .
  • The Three Laws of Motion
    • 1. A body moves in a straight line unless impeded. (Inertia).
    • 2. Every action has equal and opposite reaction.
    • 3. Every body attracts every other body with a force proportional to the distance between.
  • Note that motion is normal, and does not need explaining. Also force can be conveyed without physical touching. It is still not clear if Newton was correct here.
  • Inertia drives out the angels and lets us get the view of the Universe a a large piece of clockwork.
  • Newton also worked on Optics - Opticks - 1704

Newton was not, of course, "right". Einstein and Quantum Mechanics in the last century have shown that, but his model was infinitely better than anything done before.

Alexander Pope wrote:

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said, "Let Newton be." and all was light.

IX. Other Sciences than Physics and Astronomy

Other sciences were less on the cutting edge. They were less mathematical, but do exhibit a can-do attitude. Chemistry did not show advances until a century later.

A. The Development of Instrumentation

  • -Clocks
  • -Galileo and Telescope
  • -Leeuwenheok - microscope

B. Medicine

We saw it made little practical progress until late 1700s, but there was steady development in knowledge that eventually overthrew the demonic view of illness. The rational views of Greek medicine helped here -  influence of Galen (2nd Cent. AD).

  • Vesalius A doctor at Padua.
  • William Harvey studied at Padua.
    • 1628 - On the Movement of the Heart and the Blood
    • Harvey explained notion of continual circulation of the blood. (da Vinci had know this but not published a century earlier).
  • Malpighi (Italian)
    • 1661 discovered Capillaries

X. Practical Effects of the Scientific Revolution

There were few practical effects on technology. It is important to realize that the Industrial Revolution did not at first depend on this new scientific view of the world.

  • New mathematics and science did effect navigation, map making and artillery.
  • Better guns were another way Europeans came to dominate the world; they had better ways of using weapons and better ways of knowing where they were.
  • The laws Newton discovered could be used to fire more accurately. This effect was felt soon after Newton.
  • Science has innumerable practical ramifications: new guns, bigger armies, more taxes, social discontent.

A New attitude to past was probably more important

  • Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790): Experiments with Balloons, 1783
  • With Newton modern civilization did something the ancients had not been able to do. It explained motion and the heavens. There was now a sense of skepticism about beliefs held on old authority.
  • The Powers of Reason This led to a new confidence in the powers of reason, and perhaps a move away from faith, even if it was not rejected. We shall be moving on to the Enlightenment proper, which built especially on Newton in next class.
  • Natural Law But note that old attitude of seeing a NATURAL LAW at work in Universe was confirmed in the new Newtonian world view.
  • Can-do approach A can do-approach and the idea of progress had a part in the Industrial Revolution.

Web Exercise

Although western science experienced a breakthrough in the 16th and 17th centuries, the West was not the only place where scientific thought took place in the pre-modern period. Note the important distinction between scientific thought and other thought system, such as magic, as well as the distinction between scientific thought and technology.

  • Try to find on the web, information about Chinese science and technology.
  • Try to find on the wen, information about science in the Islamic world.

Post your findings in Caucus. Make sure to explain:

  • How you found the sites in question
  • How you would evaluate the site, based on the guidelines we used in evaluating sites in Section 1 of this course.

Discussion Questions

I am not entirely happy with the way some of you have just been posting answers to questions in Caucus, without discussing the subjects with each other, and in reaction to other people's posts. This week then, I want some of you to post the questions than you think are important, and others of you to try to answer the questions.

There are more specific questions about the most important document to consider this week, Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

 Shaping of the Modern WorldContents Page

 

 

Site Design: Paul Halsall

©
created 9/11/1998 : revised 3/1/1999