LYCOS RETRIEVER
Scientific Revolution
built 615 days ago
The Scientific Revolution is a rather loose phrase historians use to describe a profound change in intellectual thought in the 16th and 17th centuries. This change, along with the discovery of the New World and the religious transformation of Europe, forms the dividing line between the medieval world and the early modern world. The New World and the Reformation belong mainly to the earlier 16th century, so in a sense the Scientific Revolution (which belongs more to the 17th century), completes the change.
Source:
The basis for the Scientific Revolution was the Scientific Method. The scientific method uses observation and experimentation to explain theories on the workings of the universe. This process removed blind adherence to tradition from science, and allowed scientists to logically find answers through the use of reason. This method of research is the basis for modern science.
Source:
As a periodization, the Scientific Revolution has grown increasingly complex. As it has attempted to take account of new research and alternative perspectives, new additions and alterations have been made. Among the most obvious additions over the last 50 years have been a number of sub-periodizations that have been spawned by more narrow research topics, usually from a more focused topical theme or from a more narrow chronological period. Among these sub-periodizations, the more widely accepted include: The Copernican Revolution; the Galilean Revolution; the Keplerian Revolution; the Cartesian Synthesis; and not least, the Newtonian Revolution and the Newtonian Synthesis.
Source:
In this historiographical study of the Scientific Revolution, the author examines the body of work on the intellectual, social and cultural origins of early modern science. Cohen critically surveys a wide range of scholarship since the 19th century, offering new perspectives on how the Scientific Revolution changed forever the way we understand the natural world and our place in it. Cohen's discussions range from scholarly interpretations of Galileo, Kepler and Newton, to the question of why the Scientific Revolution took place in 17th-century Western Europe, rather than in ancient Greece, China or the Islamic world. Cohen contends that the emergence of early modern science was essential to the rise of the modern world, in the way it fostered advances in technology.
Source:
[M]any of the important figures of the scientific revolution shared in the Renaissance respect for ancient learning and cited ancient pedigrees for their innovations. Copernicus,[9] Kepler,[10] and Newton[11] all traced different ancient and medieval ancestries for the heliocentric system. While preparing a revised edtion of his Principia, Newton attributed his law of gravity and his first law of motion to a range of historical figures.[12] A few modern historians[13] have agreed with Newton that Aristotle anticipated his first law of motion, whereby it follows that the principle of the continuation of unresisted and externally unforced motion would not be a product of the scientific revolution.
Source:
The Scientific Revolution began with discoveries in astronomy, most importantly dealing with the concept of a solar system. These discoveries generated controversy, and some were forced by church authorities to recant their theories.
Source: