Ch 16 Toward a New World View Flashcards
What was natural philosophy?
An early modern term for the study of the nature of the universe, its purpose, and how it functioned; it encompassed what we would call “science” today.
Explain the “Aristotelian” view of the universe
A round earth is at the center, surrounded by spheres of water, air, and fire.
Beyond this small nucleus, the moon, the sun, and the five planets were embedded in their own rotating crystal spheres, with the stars sharing the surface of one enormous sphere.
Beyond the tenth sphere was Heaven, with the throne of God and the souls of the saved.
Angels kept the spheres moving in perfect circles.
Discuss Aristotle’s ideas on physics and motion
Lunar world made up of four imperfect, changeable elements. The “light” elements (air and fire) naturally moved upward, while the “heavy” elements (water and earth) naturally moved downward.
Believed that a uniform force moved an object at a constant speed and that the object would stop as soon as that force was removed. (Not true)
Why was the church so willing to accept Aristotle’s teachings?
Aristotle’s science as interpreted by Christian theologians also fit neatly with Christian doctrines.
It established a home for God and a place for Christian souls. It put human beings at the center of the universe and made them the critical link in a “great chain of being” that stretched from the throne of God to the lowliest insect on earth.
This approach to the natural world was thus a branch of theology, and it reinforced religious thought.
How did new views of the universe take shape in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?
The first important development was the medieval university. By the thirteenth century permanent universities had been established in western Europe to train the lawyers, doctors, and church leaders society required.
By 1300 philosophy — including Aristotelian natural philosophy — had taken its place alongside law, medicine, and theology. Medieval philosophers acquired a limited but real independence from theologians and a sense of free inquiry
How did Medieval Universities contribute to new views?
Many Greek texts, including many works of the philosopher Aristotle, which were lost to the West after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, re¬entered circulation through translation from the Arabic in the twelfth century; these became the basis for the curriculum of the medieval universities.
How did the renaissance contribute to new views?
Renaissance patrons played a role in funding scientific investigations, as they did for art and literature.
Renaissance artists’ turn toward realism and their use of geometry to convey 3D perspective encouraged scholars to practice close observation and to use mathematics to describe the natural world.
The quest to restore the glories of the ancient past led to the rediscovery of even more classical texts, such as Ptolemy’s Geography, which had been preserved in the Byzantine Empire and was translated into Latin around 1410.
The fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans in 1453 resulted in a great influx of little-known Greek works, as Christian scholars fled to Italy with their precious texts.
How did the nautical navigation contribute to new views?
The navigational problems of long sea voyages in the age of overseas expansion, along with the rise of trade and colonization, led to their own series of technological innovations.
As early as 1484 the king of Portugal appointed a commission of mathematicians to perfect tables to help seamen find their latitude.
Navigation and cartography were also critical in the development of many new scientific instruments, such as the telescope, barometer, thermometer, pendulum clock, microscope, and air pump.
How did the Astronomy and Astrology contribute to new views?
For most of human history, interest in astronomy was inspired by the belief that the changing relationships between planets and stars influence events on earth.
Astrology formed a regular part of the curriculum of medical schools.
How did the Magic and Alchemy contribute to new views?
Unlike modern day conjurers, the practitioners of magic strove to understand and control hidden connections they perceived among different elements of the natural world, such as that between a magnet and iron. The idea that objects possessed invisible or “occult” qualities that allowed them to affect other objects through their innate “sympathy” with each other was a particularly important legacy of the magical tradition.
Why did Copernicus dispute Ptolemy’s theory?
Copernicus noted that astronomers still depended on the work of Ptolemy for their most accurate calculations, but he felt that Ptolemy’s cumber some and occasionally inaccurate rules detracted from the majesty of a perfect creator.
What was the Copernican Hypothesis?
The sun, rather than the earth, was at the center of the universe.
How did the Copernican Hypothesis challenge accepted beliefs?
Put the stars at rest, their apparent nightly movement simply a result of the earth’s rotation. This destroyed the main reason for believing in crystal spheres capable of moving the stars around the earth.
Suggested a universe of staggering size.
By using mathematics, instead of philosophy, to justify his theories, he challenged the traditional hierarchy of the disciplines.
By characterizing the earth as just another planet, Copernicus destroyed the basic idea of Aristotelian physics — that the earthly sphere was quite different from the heavenly ones.
How did the Copernican Hypothesis challenge religion?
Rejected the notion that the earth moved, a doctrine that contradicted the literal reading of some passages of the Bible.
Who was Brahe and how did he expand on Copernicus’ views?
He established himself as Europe’s leading astronomer with his detailed observations of the new star of 1572.
Brahe built the most sophisticated observatory of his day.
Created new and improved tables of planetary motions, dubbed the Rudolphine Tables.
Part Ptolemaic, part Copernican, he believed that all the planets except the earth revolved around the sun and that the entire group of sun and planets revolved in turn around the earth¬moon system.
Who was Kepler and how did he expand on Copernicus’ views?
Kepler was inspired by his belief that the universe was built on mystical mathematical relationships and a musical harmony of the heavenly bodies.
Kepler’s examination of his predecessor’s meticulously recorded findings convinced him that Ptolemy’s astronomy could not explain them.
Kepler developed three new and revolutionary laws of planetary motion.
- He demonstrated that the orbits of the planets around the sun are elliptical rather than circular.
- The planets do not move at a uniform speed in their orbits. When a planet is close to the sun it moves more rapidly, and it slows as it moves farther away
- The time a planet takes to make its complete orbit is precisely related to its distance from the sun.
Kepler proved mathematically the precise relations of a sun¬ centered (solar) system.
He united for the first time the theoretical cosmology of natural philosophy with mathematics.
Who completed the Rudolphine tables begun by Brahe?
Kepler
Who was the first person to explain the role of refraction within the eye in creating vision and used this info to build an improved telescope?
Kepler
Who was Galileo and how did he expand on Copernicus’ views?
Great achievement was the elaboration and consolidation of the experimental method. That is, rather than speculate about what might or should hap¬pen, Galileo conducted controlled experiments to find out what actually did happen.
Galileo focused on deficiencies in Aristotle’s theories of motion.
Law of inertia
Used telescope to study astronomy
Why was Galileo viewed as a heretic?
The rising fervor of the Catholic Reformation increased the church’s hostility to radical ideas, and in 1616 the Holy Office placed the works of Copernicus and his supporters, including Kepler, on a list of books Catholics were forbidden to read.
Galileo was a devout Catholic who sincerely believed that his theories did not detract from the perfection of God. Out of caution he silenced his beliefs for several years
1632 Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World went too far. Published in Italian and widely read, this work openly lampooned the traditional views of Aristotle and Ptolemy and defended those of Copernicus.
What was the result of Galileo’s trial?
The papal Inquisition placed Galileo on trial for heresy. Imprisoned and threatened with torture, the aging Galileo recanted, “renouncing and cursing” his Copernican error.
What was the significance of Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687)?
Published single explanatory system that could integrate the astronomy of Copernicus, as corrected by Kepler’s laws, with the physics of Galileo and his predecessors. Principia Mathematica laid down Newton’s three laws of motion, using a set of mathematical laws that explain motion and mechanics.
Who discovered the law of gravity?
Newton. According to this law, everybody in the universe attracts every other body in the universe in a precise mathematical relationship, whereby the force of attraction is proportional to the quantity of matter of the objects and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them
How did Francis Bacon contribute to the Scientific Revolution?
Francis Bacon was the greatest early propagandist for the new experimental method.
Argued that new knowledge had to be pursued through empirical research.
Bacon formalized the empirical method, which had already been used by Brahe and Galileo, into the general theory of inductive reasoning known as empiricism.
What is empiricism?
Empiricism: A theory of inductive reasoning that calls for acquiring evidence through observation and experimentation rather than deductive reason and speculation
