Examples of scientific revolution

The scientific revolution makes mention of a period where a drastic change in the model of thought was generated during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries in the midst of the early modern age, transforming the various versions of life and nature, establishing this it forms the foundations that sustain science today.

The scientific revolution originated during the end of the Renaissance period , giving birth to new ideas related to chemistry, biology, physics and astronomy and together with it, the drastic change of a philosophical nature that gave rise to the creation of the social movement and intellectual better known as the enlightenment.

The superstition and religion (especially: the attribution of responsibilities and consequences supernatural beings) were replaced by science, reason and knowledge. This allowed the advancement of modern sciences and also led to changes in the social order.

Beginnings of the scientific revolution

The beginnings of the scientific revolution were basically thanks to four great scientists, namely:

• Nicolás Copernicus: He formulated the heliocentric theory of the Solar System: the translation of its planets, in elliptical orbit, around the Sun. With the publication of his work on the movement of the stars, he began the Scientific Revolution, contravening centuries of repetition of the model Aristotelian geocentric.
• Johannes Kepler: His work was fundamental for the analysis of the movement of the planets (follower of Tycho Brahe). he was a close collaborator of Tycho Brahe and one of the fundamental names in modern astronomy.
• Galileo Galilei: He formulated the first law of motion for astronomical observation. He was an important astronomical observer, for which he also improved the manufacture of telescopes, and is famous for his decisive support to the Copernican formulation of the Solar System. He is considered the father of modern physics.
• Isaac Newton: He presented the law of gravitation and others that explain reality by modifying the understanding of mathematics and physics. Author of the first great treatise on modern physics, his Philosophia naturalis principia mathematica or “mathematical principles of natural philosophy”, a work that revolutionized the physical understanding of the world and laid the foundations for the emergence of this science. His principles of motion, his thermodynamic laws, and his formulations regarding optics and infinitesimal calculus are still being put into practice.

Contributions of the scientific revolution

• The model of the Solar System . Through the calculation and observation of the firmament with increasingly refined telescopes, the first astronomers showed that the Earth is not the center of the universe around which the Sun revolves, but rather the Sun is the center of the Solar System and around he rotates the planets, including the Earth.
• Atomism vs Aristotelian theories of matter:  Aristotle thought, in ancient times, that matter was a continuous form and that it was made up of four elements: air, fire, water and earth, in various proportions. This idea prevailed during the Middle Ages, despite the fact that Democritus, another ancient philosopher, had already formulated the atomic theory. The latter was, during the Scientific Revolution, rescued and improved.
• Discard Galen’s theories in contrast to the studies of the human body:  For more than a thousand years the studies of the ancient Galen governed medical knowledge in the West, until the Scientific Revolution arrived.
• Development of chemistry versus alchemy . Chemistry was formally born during this period, thanks to the first scholars of the matter such as Tycho Brahe, Paracelsus and Robert Boyle, among others.
• Advances in studies of optics . Optics was a huge advance of the Scientific Revolution, which resulted not only in better knowledge of the behavior of light, but in better inputs for scientific research, such as telescopes and microscopes.
• Start of various experiments with electricity . William Gilbert was one of the first to engage in experimentation and recording of electrical principles, even inventing the Latin word  electricus , derived from  elektron  (“amber” in Greek). Thus he discovered the electrical properties of many different materials, such as sulfur, wax or glass, and made enormous advances in electricity and magnetism, which founded entire fields of study of physics