| The Scientific Revolution |
| Before 1500 most scholars
got their ideas about science from the ancient Greeks and Romans, or from
the bible. Aristotle and other Greek scientists had done such a
good job that most people still used their information. Others looked to
the bible for answers to their scientific questions. For example, The ancient Greeks and Christianity taught that the earth was the center of the universe. They believed that the sun and all the planets revolved around the earth. Because of the scientific revolution, we now know that is just not true. The scientific revolution was a new way of thinking that challenged these outdated ideas. Scientists started to experiment. Here’s a good example: Aristotle had a theory that heavy objects fell faster than lighter objects. And for about 1,500 years, people believed him. Well, in the late 1500’s a young Italian named Galileo tested this theory. According to legend, he went up to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped stones of different weights to the ground. He proved Aristotle wrong and found what we know today; objects of different weights fall at the same speed. If you drop a bowling ball and a baseball out of a high window - they will fall at the same speed. This new breed of scientists used what is called the scientific method. They experimented over and over again to prove or disprove an idea. They didn’t just accept an idea or a theory; they conducted experiments and reached their own conclusions. Isaac Newton was another of these scientists. He explained the laws of gravity and paved the way for our modern understanding of physics. Again, he proved Aristotle wrong (poor Aristotle, one of the great scientists of history, is really taking a beating here), Aristotle thought that one set of physical laws governed earth and that another set governed the rest of the universe. Newton argued that there was a universal law of gravitation that applied equally to earth and the heavens. |