The Revoluational Aspects of the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation

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The Revoluational Aspects of the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation What does it mean to be revolutionary? To be revolutionary is to be, as defined by dictionary.com as “markedly new or introducing radical change”. It is my educated opinion to believe that the scientific revolution and the reformation were both revolutionary without a doubt. A revolution involves change, mass amounts of change which affects nearly everything. It’s not a change of wardrobe, or a new car, it is much, much greater than that. A revolution changes the way people view themselves and the universe in which they are living in and it doesn’t come easily. Revolution is usually brought about as a very last option. People do not welcome change; they are very uncomfortable with it. They fear it, what if the situation gets worse? People allow change only when they have finally hit rock bottom. Things must get extremely messy before anything can improve. In order to understand the scientific revolution and the reformation it is key to understand the dramatic change which underwent. The Scientific Revolution was nothing less than a revolution in the way the individual perceives the world. Ultimately the scientific revolution challenged conceptions and beliefs about the nature of the external world. This revolution changes the man’s thought process. It was an intellectual revolution -- a revolution in human knowledge. The scientific revolutionaries attempted to understand and explain man and the natural world. Thinkers such as Copernicus, Descartes, and Newton overturned the authority of the Middle Ages and the classical world. By authority I don’t mean that of the church but of the “triad” Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen. The revolutionaries of the new science had to escape their intellectual heritage. The long term effects of both the Scientific Revolution and the acceptance and dependence upon science can still be felt today in our daily lives. Philosophers of the middle ages had used the ideas of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Christianity to form the geocentric theory of the universe, which until the scientific revolution was never challenged. The time had come, a challenge was formed. Nicholas Copernicus hoped that his heliocentric theory would offer a more accurate explanation. He claimed that the sun was motionless at the center of the universe and the planets revolved around the sun, the moon however revolved around the earth. The next step in destroying the geocentric conception of the world and supporting Copernicus’ belief was Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

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