Galileo and modern science
Introduction The history of science is filled with new ideas, exciting discoveries and changes in beliefs. ... He is considered the founder of modern astronomy. ... By the early 1600s, such astronomers as Galileo in Italy and Johannes Kepler in Germany began to develop the physics that would prove Copernicus theory correct. ... first modern European theory of planetary motion that was heliocentric, i. ... 2 Science, in the modern sense of the term, came into being in the 16th and 17th cent. ... The feeling of dissatisfaction with the older philosophical approach had begun much earlier and had produced other results, such as the Protestant Reformation, but the revolution in science began with the work of Copernicus, Paracelsus, Vesalius, and others in the 16th cent. ... ************************************************************** Copernicus has been named one of the most influential people this millennia by Time Magazine; in part for his movements in though during the scientific revolution; creating a basis for modern astronomy and challenging the Church (of the 15th century) to lead the way to a reform in thinking. ... " The reluctance of the Church to accept any new theories indicated its long stronghold over the minds of people in science. ... Famous historians have said, "Copernicus conceived his theory in an epoch which was intellectually not yet ready to accept it, nor was science ready to accept it. ... The expansion in thinking gave way for astronomers like Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei who further revolutionized astronomy as we know it today. ... "Considered the father of modern astronomy, he completely revolutionized science in the 1500s, giving way to others with radical theories to present them, and be accepted, not rejected. ... What he contributed to astronomy will not be forgotten, and many new ideas shall rise because of his radical thinking, making him truly worthy of being The father of Modern Astronomy," and being placed on Time Magazines list of the 100 most influential people of the millenia. ********************************************************* The Challenge of Modern Science What we call modern science began in the sixteenth and seventeenth century as a challenge to the traditional Christian and Greeks views sketched out briefly above. ... The really decisive challenge came from those who, in defense of Copernicuss suggestion, insisted that the very nature of science must change, that it must work from a different purpose and by different methods. ... Here the work of Galileo is centrally important. ... And faced with such a clash, Galileo proposed radical alterations to the traditional view. ... Traditional science, relying on the Great Chain of Being, subordinated inquiry into nature to moral concerns. The aim of science, like the aim of all life, was to confirm, celebrate, and acknowledge the given truth of the world. The new science began out of a frustration with this method, because it never produced any new knowledge. ... As the most energetic advocate of the new science, Francis Bacon, repeatedly remarked (in the seventeenth century) to explain the cause of some natural phenomenon by attributing it to some essential property in keeping with Gods overall plan for the universe was an explanation of no practical value. And Bacon, like his French colleague Descartes, wanted above all a practical science, an understanding of nature that would give human beings more power over nature and lead to what Descartes called "the relief of mans estate. ... To foster an understanding of these, the new science called for mechanical models of the stuff of nature, experiments to understand their mathematical properties, and constant adjustment or readjustment of the shaping theory in order to fit the mechanical model. ... Why after more than a thousand years of relatively calm acceptance of the traditional view of science, did European thinkers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suddenly demand such a radical reorientation of our understanding of the world? ... However, once the new science began to demonstrate the rapidity with which it could generate new knowledge, new powers over nature, it began to acquire an increasing momentum until it became what we are familiar with, the central driving imperative of our western culture. ... He was one of the founders of modern astronomy. ... Its only defenders included Johannes Kepler (1571 -1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564- 1642). ... However if it wasn’t for Copernicus, modern astronomy would have never made advances as far as it has to today. Copernicus’s hard work and strength is why he is one of the most important founders of modern astronomy. ... Its notable defenders included Johannes Kepler (1571 -1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). ... Of course, this is so in modern astronomy too. ... The solution to this objection could not be given within the framework of Aristotelian mechanics that Copernicus used; it had to wait until Galileo, of whom well talk next time, changed our notions of how bodies move. ... The Roman Catholic Church did not object to the Copernican system until later, when Bruno and Galileo claimed that it actually described reality. ... Luthers position is the same as that of some Christians who nowadays object to modern evolutionary biology. ... Kepler was of the same generation as Galileo, born in 1564; it was this generation and the following one, that of Descartes, which inaugurated science as we know it. ... For the Aristotelian thought which dominated science up to the 17th century, the nature of the celestial bodies--their matter, their motions, the laws of those motions--was entirely different from the nature of things here on earth. ... One science applies to the whole cosmos. This breaking of symmetry for the sake of unity is a hallmark of all fundamental breakthroughs in science. And, I submit, not only in science, but in art, in human communication, in our own lives. ... For an account of the crises at the beginning of modern science, Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis, Norton (whole book). ... Rather, they indicate the scope of the work that lay ahead and that was effectively addressed in the next century when Kepler determined the ellipticity of planetary orbits, Galileo formulated his new concept of motion, and Newton espoused his theory of universal gravitation. ... He is considered the founder of modern astronomy. ... By the early 1600s, such astronomers as Galileo in Italy and Johannes Kepler in Germany began to develop the physics that would prove Copernicus theory correct.