Scientific Revolution Enlightenment

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

Science tries to explain the world without reference to God or gods. It sees the world as an object, and tries to explain how it moves and interacts. Science is therefore distinct from technology which is a way of manipulating the world. Many cultures had technological knowledge, but scientific thinking was first developed in an extensive way by the Ancient Greeks. It was the Greeks thoughts which dominated Europe up until the Scientific Revolution. The big issue for the Greeks was trying to explain how and why things moved. Since they believed everything happened for a reason, they thought there had to be an explanation for any motion at all. This is seen stated in the Perry book, “In
Each planet was attached to a transparent sphere that turned around the earth.” (Perry ch. 2; pg. 28). It was overturning this idea that was Isaac Newton's greatest triumph. From this the Enlightenment was born, which further analyzed the facts stated during the Scientific Revolution
The Scientific Revolution during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a time of greater learning and understanding that led to a better understanding about the natural world. By directly observing nature and carefully controlled experiments mysteries were unraveled that previously stumped scholars. Between the publication of Copernicus On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs in 1543, which proposed that the earth and other planets went around the Sun but did not show how or why,
Though most of his ideas were not proven, Isaac Newton was inspired by Galileo's ideas, and continued to improve on Galileo's ideas. Galileo therefore influenced Newton by leaving theories on the differences between the mysteries of color, the center of the universe, and the motions of gravity. When the Age of Enlightenment came, the church adopted the ideas of Aristotle and believed that colors were a mixture of light and darkness. Colors were created depending on the mix of light or lack of light. Galileo believed that light and darkness, had nothing to do with colors. Darkness was the absence of light in a certain spot. The people and church rejected his belief because he could not prove it. These events encouraged Newton to find proof to support Galileo and his ideas. He tried an experiment involving a prism and a small amount of light and discovered that the light, which entered the prism and turned into a bunch of colors against the wall. He concluded that a light ray could be bent and would create a certain color. The experiment influenced Newton, through Galileo's unfinished work. Galileo left Newton work to finish which had stirred anger amongst the church. This evidence helps support the connection between the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. All of the great minds of the Scientific Revolution provided the facts or stepping