The Scientific Revolution

Wowwww. When I look out at space, I feel so small. Just one tiny human, on one tiny planet, in a whole solar system circling the sun. Philip’s right, but people haven’t always thought this way. Up until the late 1500s, most Europeans believed Earth was the centre of everything - with the sun, moon and stars moving around it.

But in the mid-1500s, a Polish scholar named Nicolaus Copernicus challenges this idea. He suggests that the earth and other planets are centered around the sun. This sun-centered view becomes known as the heliocentric view. A few decades later, in the 1600s, German astronomer Johannes Kepler takes a closer look at the heliocentric view. He manages to calculate the actual path that planets take around the sun.

The heliocentric view is confirmed! Copernicus and Kepler have laid the foundation for an entirely new way of thinking about the universe. Their work starts a revolution in science! We call this period the Scientific Revolution. In Italy, astronomer Galileo builds a telescope much like the one Philip was using.

Galileo notices that Jupiter’s four moons move slowly around the planet. Ah! More evidence that not everything moves around the earth. Jupiter’s moons move around Jupiter, just like the earth moves around the sun! This is a big win for science!

But Galileo’s discoveries don’t go down well with everyone. Some scholars reject Galileo’s version of the universe because it goes against long-held views. And the Catholic Church is furious! Galileo’s work challenges their teaching that the ‘heavens’, or space, are perfect and unchanging, locked in position with the earth. The church threatens Galileo with torture until he publicly ‘admits’ his ideas are wrong.

But despite all this push-back, no-one can stop the news of Galileo’s exciting work spreading around Europe. It’s not just his discoveries that catch on. Other scientists copy his method, too, of making observations and doing experiments. Instead of just relying on what has always been believed, scientists start collecting information about the world. Then they use this information to think about a possible explanation for what they have observed.

This possible explanation is called a hypothesis. Next, scientists do more tests to see if the hypothesis is correct. This process of observing, reasoning, and testing, becomes known as the scientific method. Two champions of the scientific method are Francis Bacon, in England, and René Descartes in France. Bacon stresses experimenting and observing.

Descartes emphasises logical thinking, or rationalism. As you might imagine, approaching science in this new methodical way leads to dramatic breakthroughs. English chemist Robert Boyle finds that the stuff around us - matter - is made up of tiny particles that behave in knowable ways. And Isaac Newton uses mathematics to show that a force keeps the planets in orbits around the sun. He calls this force gravity.

We have the Scientific Revolution to thank for a lot of the basics of science we know today, and for the scientific method that keeps us questioning and experimenting to learn more... I, for one, am glad to know what’s keeping the earth in orbit! Me too, Philip.