Scientific Revolution Research Paper

A complete revolution of knowledge and transformation in perception of the natural world, the Scientific Revolution was one of the greatest movements in history. Inspired by the ideas of the Renaissance, a beautiful rebirth of intellect that had arisen from the stagnation of the Middle Ages, brilliant scientists such as Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton sought to escape, disprove, and replace traditional beliefs with new ideas about the universe and the mechanical laws that govern it. Using mathematical calculations and experiments to make amazing discoveries, these men laid the foundation of modern science centuries ago.
During the “Middle Ages”, the period of European history from the downfall of the Roman Empire in the
Scientific revolutionaries attempted to extricate themselves from their intellectual heritage and explain man, the natural world, and the laws that governed it using calculations and experimentation, instead of just conjecture and thought. Brilliant men such as Nicholas Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton all played uniquely important roles in shaping the course of history and impacting modern science by laying its foundation centuries ago (Kreis, “Lecture
For centuries, ancient astronomers supported the geocentric theory, the belief that a motionless Earth was the center of the universe and all the other planets and sun were orbiting around it in circular paths. However, as studies of the heavens continued, this theory grew increasingly unsatisfactory and complex. The planets seemed to have varying speeds, moved closer to the Earth at times, and even changed direction to directly oppose their orbit (“The Beginning”). It was out of this confusion that the humble astronomer Nicholas Copernicus emerged with an entirely new and utterly radical idea – the heliocentric theory. Among other conclusions, Copernicus proposed that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe, and that the Earth and the other planets revolved around it. This theory completely incensed the Catholic Church while alarming Copernicus’ contemporaries and as such, received little accreditation. Initially, it was not seen for what it truly was – a turning point in scientific history that was as essential and important as any other. Publishing his work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies) in the year of his death, Copernicus died seen as a fool with no mathematical proof to support his preposterous theories (Kreis,