Ch. 20 The Age of Enlightenment

The scientific revolution, 19.3: the scientific revolution, 19.3.1: roots of the scientific revolution.

The scientific revolution, which emphasized systematic experimentation as the most valid research method, resulted in developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry. These developments transformed the views of society about nature.

Learning Objective

Outline the changes that occurred during the Scientific Revolution that resulted in developments towards a new means for experimentation

  • The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature.
  • The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons: collaboration, the derivation of new experimental methods, the ability to build on the legacy of existing scientific philosophy, and institutions that enabled academic publishing.
  • Under the scientific method, which was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community.
  • During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in respect to nature, and the value of experimental or observed evidence, led to a scientific methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role.
  • As the scientific revolution was not marked by any single change, many new ideas contributed. Some of them were revolutions in their own fields.
  • Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences, and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought.

The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature. The scientific revolution began in Europe toward the end of the Renaissance period, and continued through the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment. While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium  ( On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres ) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution.

The scientific revolution was built upon the foundation of ancient Greek learning and science in the Middle Ages, as it had been elaborated and further developed by Roman/Byzantine science and medieval Islamic science. The Aristotelian tradition was still an important intellectual framework in the 17th century, although by that time natural philosophers had moved away from much of it. Key scientific ideas dating back to classical antiquity had changed drastically over the years, and in many cases been discredited. The ideas that remained (for example, Aristotle’s cosmology, which placed the Earth at the center of a spherical hierarchic cosmos, or the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion) were transformed fundamentally during the scientific revolution.

The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons:

  • Seventeenth century scientists and philosophers were able to collaborate with members of the mathematical and astronomical communities to effect advances in all fields.
  • Scientists realized the inadequacy of medieval experimental methods for their work and so felt the need to devise new methods (some of which we use today).
  • Academics had access to a legacy of European, Greek, and Middle Eastern scientific philosophy that they could use as a starting point (either by disproving or building on the theorems).
  • Institutions (for example, the British Royal Society) helped validate science as a field by providing an outlet for the publication of scientists’ work.

New Methods

Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. The philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature (to abandon assumption and to attempt to simply observe with an open mind) was in strict contrast with the earlier, Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced further understanding. In practice, many scientists and philosophers believed that a healthy mix of both was needed—the willingness to both question assumptions, and to interpret observations assumed to have some degree of validity.

During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in respect to nature, the value of evidence, experimental or observed, led towards a scientific methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role. The term British empiricism came into use to describe philosophical differences perceived between two of its founders—Francis Bacon, described as empiricist, and René Descartes, who was described as a rationalist. Bacon’s works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or sometimes simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. Correspondingly, Descartes distinguished between the knowledge that could be attained by reason alone (rationalist approach), as, for example, in mathematics, and the knowledge that required experience of the world, as in physics.

Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents of empiricism, and developed a sophisticated empirical tradition as the basis of human knowledge. The recognized founder of the approach was John Locke, who proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) that the only true knowledge that could be accessible to the human mind was that which was based on experience.

Many new ideas contributed to what is called the scientific revolution. Some of them were revolutions in their own fields. These include:

  • The heliocentric model that involved the radical displacement of the earth to an orbit around the sun (as opposed to being seen as the center of the universe). Copernicus’ 1543 work on the heliocentric model of the solar system tried to demonstrate that the sun was the center of the universe. The discoveries of Johannes Kepler and Galileo gave the theory credibility and the work culminated in Isaac Newton’s Principia, which formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.
  • Studying human anatomy based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather than the animal dissections, as practiced for centuries.
  • Discovering and studying magnetism and electricity, and thus, electric properties of various materials.
  • Modernization of disciplines (making them more as what they are today), including dentistry, physiology, chemistry, or optics.
  • Invention of tools that deepened the understating of sciences, including mechanical calculator, steam digester (the forerunner of the steam engine), refracting and reflecting telescopes, vacuum pump, or mercury barometer.

The Shannon Portrait of the Hon. Robert Boyle F. R. S. (1627-1691)

The Shannon Portrait of the Hon. Robert Boyle F. R. S. (1627-1691) Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an Irish-born English scientist, was an early supporter of the scientific method and founder of modern chemistry. Boyle is known for his pioneering experiments on the physical properties of gases, his authorship of the Sceptical Chymist, his role in creating the Royal Society of London, and his philanthropy in the American colonies.

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

The scientific revolution laid the foundations for the Age of Enlightenment, which centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and emphasized the importance of the scientific method. By the 18th century, when the Enlightenment flourished, scientific authority began to displace religious authority, and disciplines until then seen as legitimately scientific (e.g.,  alchemy and astrology) lost scientific credibility.

Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences, and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. At the time, science was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. The century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Isaac Newton's Principia, developed the first set of unified scientific laws

Isaac Newton’s Principia, developed the first set of unified scientific laws

Newton’s Principia  formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. His laws of motion were to be the solid foundation of mechanics.

Attributions

  • “Age of Enlightenment.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “René Descartes.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Scientific method.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Baconian method.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baconian_method . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Royal Society.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Galileo Galilei.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Science in the Age of Enlightenment.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_Age_of_Enlightenment . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Scientific revolution.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
  • “Jo Kent, The Impact of the Scientific Revolution: A Brief History of the Experimental Method in the 17th Century. June 12, 2014.” http://cnx.org/content/m13245/1.1/ . OpenStax CNX CC BY 2.0 .
  • “NewtonsPrincipia.jpg.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution#/media/File:NewtonsPrincipia.jpg . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 2.0 .
  • “The Shannon Portrait of the Hon Robert Boyle.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Shannon_Portrait_of_the_Hon_Robert_Boyle.jpg . Wikipedia Public domain .
  • Boundless World History. Authored by : Boundless. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Footer Logo Lumen Candela

Privacy Policy

If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

World History Project - 1750 to the Present

Course: world history project - 1750 to the present   >   unit 3.

  • BEFORE YOU WATCH: Origins of the Industrial Revolution
  • WATCH: Origins of the Industrial Revolution
  • READ: Scale of the Industrial Revolution

READ: The Scientific Revolution

  • READ: The Industrial Revolution
  • BEFORE YOU WATCH: Coal, Steam, and the Industrial Revolution
  • WATCH: Coal, Steam, and the Industrial Revolution
  • Origins of the Industrial Revolution

First read: preview and skimming for gist

Second read: key ideas and understanding content.

  • What is the usual story of the Scientific Revolution?
  • How does the author challenge the usual story of the Scientific Revolution?
  • Who participated in the Scientific Revolution?
  • What were some negative social effects of the Scientific Revolution?
  • Does the author think the Scientific Revolution caused the Industrial Revolution?

Third read: evaluating and corroborating

  • You just read an article about scale and the Industrial Revolution. In that article, the author questioned whether the Industrial Revolution happened in Britain because of local or global factors. What do you think explains the emergence of the Scientific Revolution in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Was this the result of local or global processes?
  • Using the networks frame, explain why the Scientific Revolution happened in Europe and how it might have led to the Industrial Revolution.

The Scientific Revolution

Was it revolutionary, was it european, whose revolution, did it cause the industrial revolution.

  • The word other can refer to the otherness of marginalize people. Anyone not belonging to the most powerful or privileged class can be a type of “other” due to race, gender, religion, socio-economic status, etc.
  • It’s hard to say exactly when people started thinking about race, but it’s definitely not a natural and ancient idea. Of course, people had a sense of others outside their community, who they often looked down upon, but that wasn’t the same as seeing people as different races. For Europeans in the medieval period, humans were sorted into Christians, Jews, and heathens.

Want to join the conversation?

  • Upvote Button navigates to signup page
  • Downvote Button navigates to signup page
  • Flag Button navigates to signup page

Scientific Revolution, Ideologies of the

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online: 05 May 2020
  • Cite this living reference work entry

science revolution essay

  • Pietro Daniel Omodeo 3  

89 Accesses

Introduction

The Scientific Revolution was one of the central concepts in the history of science during most of the twentieth century. Its central idea is that a unique break in intellectual history generated modern science – or science tout court . Historians and philosophers of science have long debated the exact geo-historical coordinates of such an event, including which disciplines were involved in it and which material and intellectual causes produced this cultural change. In general, historians of the Scientific Revolution have assumed that it must have taken place in early modern Europe during the two or more centuries that culminated in the works of figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. Intellectual historians such as Alexandre Koyré regarded the Scientific Revolution as a spiritual achievement – one that was both philosophical and theoretical – whereas historical materialists such as Boris Hessen and Edgar Zilsel sought the...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Bacon F (2000a) The New Organon, (ed) L Jardine and M Silverthorne. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Google Scholar  

Bacon F (2000b) The advancement of learning. In: Kiernan M (ed) The Oxford Francis Bacon, vol 4. Oxford, Clarendon

Bauman Z (1997) Postmodernity and its discontents. Polity Press-Blackwell, Cambridge\Oxford

Bukharin N et al (1931) Science at the crossroads: papers presented to the international congress of the history of science and technology (London, 1931). Kniga, London

Cardano G (1962) The book of my life [De Vita Propria Liber] (trans: Stoner J). Dover Publications, New York

Cohen F (1994) The scientific revolution: a historiographical inquiry. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Copernicus N (1543) De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Petreius, Nuremberg

Daston L (2017) The history of science and the history of knowledge. Know J Format Knowl 1(1):131–154

Article   Google Scholar  

Della Porta GB (1658) Natural Magick in XX Bookes. Gaywood, London

Book   Google Scholar  

Epple M, Zittel C (2010) Science as cultural practice. Vol. 1. Cultures and politics of research from the early modern period to the age of extremes. Akademie Verlag, Berlin

Feingold M (1984) The mathematicians’ apprenticeship: science, universities and society in England 1560–1640. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Freudenthal G, McLaughlin P (2009) The social and economic roots of the scientific revolution: texts by Boris Hessen und Hendryk Grossmann. Springer, Boston

Galison P, Stump DJ (1996) The disunity of science: boundaries, contexts, and power. Stanford University Press, Stanford

Hooykaas R (2003) The rise of modern science: when and why? In: Hellyer M (ed) The scientific revolution. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 17–43

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Kofman A (2018) Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science. The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html . Accessed 12 July 2019

Koyré A (1943) Galileo and Plato. J Hist Ideas 4(4):400–428

Kuhn TS (1970) Alexandre Koyré and the history of science. Encounters 34:67–69

Lefèvre W (1978) Naturtheorie und Produktionsweise, Probleme einer materialistischen Wissenschaftsgeschichtsschreibung: Eine Studie zur Genese der neuzeitlichen Naturwissenschaft. Hermann Luchterhand, Darmstadt-Neuwied

Long PO (2011) Artisan/practitioners and the rise of the new sciences, 1400–1600. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis

Lorini B (1596) Delle fortificazioni. Rampazetto, Venice

Merton RK (1970) Science, technology and society in seventeenth-century England [1938]. Howard Fertig, New York

Needham J (1954) Science and civilisation in China. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Omodeo PD (2016) Copernicus as Kuhn’s paradigm of paradigms: the epistemological dimension of The Copernican Revolution. In: Blum A et al (eds) Shifting paradigms: Thomas S. Kuhn and the history of science. Edition Open Access, Berlin, pp 61–86

Omodeo PD (2017) Post-Copernican science in Galileo’s Italy. Perspect Sci 25(3):393–410

Omodeo PD (2018a) Socio-political coordinates of early-modern mechanics: a preliminary discussion. In: Rivka F et al (eds) Emergence and expansion of pre-classical mechanics. Springer, Cham, pp 55–78

Omodeo PD (2018b) Soggettività, strutture, egemonie: Questioni politico-culturali in epistemologia storica. Studi Culturali 15(2):211–234

Omodeo PD (2018c) Postverità e ragione populista. Studi Culturali 15(3):467–469

Oreskes N, Conway EM (2010) Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Press, New York

Raina D (2016) After exceptionalism and heritage: thinking through the multiple histories of knowledge. In: Brentjes S et al (eds) 1001 distortions: how (not) to narrate history of science, medicine, and technology in non-western cultures. Ergon, Würzburg, pp 25–38

Ramus P [De la Ramée] (1569) Scholarum mathematicarum libri XXXI. Per Eusebium Episcopum et Nicolai Fratris haeredes, Basle

Renn J (ed) (2001) Galileo in context. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Rutkin D (2019) Sapientia Astrologica: astrology, magic and natural knowledge, ca. 1250–1800. vol I. Medieval structures (1250–1500): conceptual, institutional, socio-political, theologico-religious and cultural. Springer, Cham

Sarton G (1936) The study of the history of science. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Schaffer S, Shapin S (2011) Introduction to the 2011 edition: up for air: leviathan and the air-pump a generation on. In: Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle and experimental life. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp xi–l

Schmitt C (1981) Studies in Renaissance philosophy and science. Variorum reprint, London

Shapin S (1994) A social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century England. University of Chicago press, Chicago

Shapin S (1996) The scientific revolution. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Smith P (2004) The body of the artisan: art and experience in the scientific revolution. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Swerdlow NM (2004) An essay on Thomas Kuhn’s first scientific revolution: the Copernican Revolution. Proc Am Philos Soc 148(1):64–120

Valleriani M (2017) Practical knowledge. Springer, Boston

Vogel K (2006) European expansion and self-definition. In: Prak K, Daston L (eds) The Cambridge history of science, Early modern science, vol 3. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 818–840

Young RM (1990) Marxism and the history of science. In: Olby RC et al (eds) Companion to the history of modern science. Routledge, London\New York, pp 77–86

Zilsel E (2000) The sociological roots of science [1942]. Soc Stud Sci 30(6):935–939

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

ERC EarlyModernCosmology (Horizon 2020, GA 725883), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

Pietro Daniel Omodeo

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pietro Daniel Omodeo .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

Dana Jalobeanu

Dept. of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University Dept. Philosophy & Moral Sci, Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Charles T. Wolfe

Section Editor information

Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Sarton Centre for History of Science, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Omodeo, P.D. (2020). Scientific Revolution, Ideologies of the. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_561-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_561-1

Received : 16 October 2019

Accepted : 22 March 2020

Published : 05 May 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-20791-9

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-20791-9

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Religion and Philosophy Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Humanities

  • Publish with us

Policies and ethics

  • Find a journal
  • Track your research
  • Search Menu
  • Browse content in Arts and Humanities
  • Browse content in Archaeology
  • Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
  • Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
  • Archaeology by Region
  • Archaeology of Religion
  • Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
  • Biblical Archaeology
  • Contemporary and Public Archaeology
  • Environmental Archaeology
  • Historical Archaeology
  • History and Theory of Archaeology
  • Industrial Archaeology
  • Landscape Archaeology
  • Mortuary Archaeology
  • Prehistoric Archaeology
  • Underwater Archaeology
  • Urban Archaeology
  • Zooarchaeology
  • Browse content in Architecture
  • Architectural Structure and Design
  • History of Architecture
  • Residential and Domestic Buildings
  • Theory of Architecture
  • Browse content in Art
  • Art Subjects and Themes
  • History of Art
  • Industrial and Commercial Art
  • Theory of Art
  • Biographical Studies
  • Byzantine Studies
  • Browse content in Classical Studies
  • Classical History
  • Classical Philosophy
  • Classical Mythology
  • Classical Literature
  • Classical Reception
  • Classical Art and Architecture
  • Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
  • Greek and Roman Papyrology
  • Greek and Roman Epigraphy
  • Greek and Roman Law
  • Greek and Roman Archaeology
  • Late Antiquity
  • Religion in the Ancient World
  • Digital Humanities
  • Browse content in History
  • Colonialism and Imperialism
  • Diplomatic History
  • Environmental History
  • Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
  • Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
  • Historical Geography
  • History by Period
  • History of Emotions
  • History of Agriculture
  • History of Education
  • History of Gender and Sexuality
  • Industrial History
  • Intellectual History
  • International History
  • Labour History
  • Legal and Constitutional History
  • Local and Family History
  • Maritime History
  • Military History
  • National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
  • Oral History
  • Political History
  • Public History
  • Regional and National History
  • Revolutions and Rebellions
  • Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
  • Social and Cultural History
  • Theory, Methods, and Historiography
  • Urban History
  • World History
  • Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
  • Language Learning (Specific Skills)
  • Language Teaching Theory and Methods
  • Browse content in Linguistics
  • Applied Linguistics
  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Forensic Linguistics
  • Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
  • Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
  • History of English
  • Language Evolution
  • Language Reference
  • Language Acquisition
  • Language Variation
  • Language Families
  • Lexicography
  • Linguistic Anthropology
  • Linguistic Theories
  • Linguistic Typology
  • Phonetics and Phonology
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Translation and Interpretation
  • Writing Systems
  • Browse content in Literature
  • Bibliography
  • Children's Literature Studies
  • Literary Studies (Romanticism)
  • Literary Studies (American)
  • Literary Studies (Asian)
  • Literary Studies (European)
  • Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
  • Literary Studies (Modernism)
  • Literary Studies - World
  • Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
  • Literary Studies (19th Century)
  • Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
  • Literary Studies (African American Literature)
  • Literary Studies (British and Irish)
  • Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
  • Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
  • Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
  • Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
  • Literary Studies (History of the Book)
  • Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
  • Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
  • Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
  • Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
  • Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
  • Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
  • Literary Studies (War Literature)
  • Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
  • Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
  • Mythology and Folklore
  • Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
  • Browse content in Media Studies
  • Browse content in Music
  • Applied Music
  • Dance and Music
  • Ethics in Music
  • Ethnomusicology
  • Gender and Sexuality in Music
  • Medicine and Music
  • Music Cultures
  • Music and Media
  • Music and Religion
  • Music and Culture
  • Music Education and Pedagogy
  • Music Theory and Analysis
  • Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
  • Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
  • Musicology and Music History
  • Performance Practice and Studies
  • Race and Ethnicity in Music
  • Sound Studies
  • Browse content in Performing Arts
  • Browse content in Philosophy
  • Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
  • Epistemology
  • Feminist Philosophy
  • History of Western Philosophy
  • Metaphysics
  • Moral Philosophy
  • Non-Western Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Language
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Philosophy of Perception
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy of Action
  • Philosophy of Law
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
  • Practical Ethics
  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Browse content in Religion
  • Biblical Studies
  • Christianity
  • East Asian Religions
  • History of Religion
  • Judaism and Jewish Studies
  • Qumran Studies
  • Religion and Education
  • Religion and Health
  • Religion and Politics
  • Religion and Science
  • Religion and Law
  • Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
  • Religious Studies
  • Browse content in Society and Culture
  • Cookery, Food, and Drink
  • Cultural Studies
  • Customs and Traditions
  • Ethical Issues and Debates
  • Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
  • Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
  • Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
  • Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
  • Sports and Outdoor Recreation
  • Technology and Society
  • Travel and Holiday
  • Visual Culture
  • Browse content in Law
  • Arbitration
  • Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
  • Commercial Law
  • Company Law
  • Browse content in Comparative Law
  • Systems of Law
  • Competition Law
  • Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
  • Government Powers
  • Judicial Review
  • Local Government Law
  • Military and Defence Law
  • Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
  • Construction Law
  • Contract Law
  • Browse content in Criminal Law
  • Criminal Procedure
  • Criminal Evidence Law
  • Sentencing and Punishment
  • Employment and Labour Law
  • Environment and Energy Law
  • Browse content in Financial Law
  • Banking Law
  • Insolvency Law
  • History of Law
  • Human Rights and Immigration
  • Intellectual Property Law
  • Browse content in International Law
  • Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
  • Public International Law
  • IT and Communications Law
  • Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
  • Law and Politics
  • Law and Society
  • Browse content in Legal System and Practice
  • Courts and Procedure
  • Legal Skills and Practice
  • Primary Sources of Law
  • Regulation of Legal Profession
  • Medical and Healthcare Law
  • Browse content in Policing
  • Criminal Investigation and Detection
  • Police and Security Services
  • Police Procedure and Law
  • Police Regional Planning
  • Browse content in Property Law
  • Personal Property Law
  • Study and Revision
  • Terrorism and National Security Law
  • Browse content in Trusts Law
  • Wills and Probate or Succession
  • Browse content in Medicine and Health
  • Browse content in Allied Health Professions
  • Arts Therapies
  • Clinical Science
  • Dietetics and Nutrition
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Operating Department Practice
  • Physiotherapy
  • Radiography
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Browse content in Anaesthetics
  • General Anaesthesia
  • Neuroanaesthesia
  • Clinical Neuroscience
  • Browse content in Clinical Medicine
  • Acute Medicine
  • Cardiovascular Medicine
  • Clinical Genetics
  • Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
  • Dermatology
  • Endocrinology and Diabetes
  • Gastroenterology
  • Genito-urinary Medicine
  • Geriatric Medicine
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Medical Toxicology
  • Medical Oncology
  • Pain Medicine
  • Palliative Medicine
  • Rehabilitation Medicine
  • Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
  • Rheumatology
  • Sleep Medicine
  • Sports and Exercise Medicine
  • Community Medical Services
  • Critical Care
  • Emergency Medicine
  • Forensic Medicine
  • Haematology
  • History of Medicine
  • Browse content in Medical Skills
  • Clinical Skills
  • Communication Skills
  • Nursing Skills
  • Surgical Skills
  • Browse content in Medical Dentistry
  • Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
  • Paediatric Dentistry
  • Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
  • Surgical Dentistry
  • Medical Ethics
  • Medical Statistics and Methodology
  • Browse content in Neurology
  • Clinical Neurophysiology
  • Neuropathology
  • Nursing Studies
  • Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
  • Gynaecology
  • Occupational Medicine
  • Ophthalmology
  • Otolaryngology (ENT)
  • Browse content in Paediatrics
  • Neonatology
  • Browse content in Pathology
  • Chemical Pathology
  • Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
  • Histopathology
  • Medical Microbiology and Virology
  • Patient Education and Information
  • Browse content in Pharmacology
  • Psychopharmacology
  • Browse content in Popular Health
  • Caring for Others
  • Complementary and Alternative Medicine
  • Self-help and Personal Development
  • Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
  • Cell Biology
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Reproduction, Growth and Development
  • Primary Care
  • Professional Development in Medicine
  • Browse content in Psychiatry
  • Addiction Medicine
  • Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
  • Forensic Psychiatry
  • Learning Disabilities
  • Old Age Psychiatry
  • Psychotherapy
  • Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
  • Epidemiology
  • Public Health
  • Browse content in Radiology
  • Clinical Radiology
  • Interventional Radiology
  • Nuclear Medicine
  • Radiation Oncology
  • Reproductive Medicine
  • Browse content in Surgery
  • Cardiothoracic Surgery
  • Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
  • General Surgery
  • Neurosurgery
  • Paediatric Surgery
  • Peri-operative Care
  • Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
  • Surgical Oncology
  • Transplant Surgery
  • Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
  • Vascular Surgery
  • Browse content in Science and Mathematics
  • Browse content in Biological Sciences
  • Aquatic Biology
  • Biochemistry
  • Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology and Conservation
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genetics and Genomics
  • Microbiology
  • Molecular and Cell Biology
  • Natural History
  • Plant Sciences and Forestry
  • Research Methods in Life Sciences
  • Structural Biology
  • Systems Biology
  • Zoology and Animal Sciences
  • Browse content in Chemistry
  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Computational Chemistry
  • Crystallography
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Industrial Chemistry
  • Inorganic Chemistry
  • Materials Chemistry
  • Medicinal Chemistry
  • Mineralogy and Gems
  • Organic Chemistry
  • Physical Chemistry
  • Polymer Chemistry
  • Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
  • Theoretical Chemistry
  • Browse content in Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Architecture and Logic Design
  • Game Studies
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Mathematical Theory of Computation
  • Programming Languages
  • Software Engineering
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • Virtual Reality
  • Browse content in Computing
  • Business Applications
  • Computer Security
  • Computer Games
  • Computer Networking and Communications
  • Digital Lifestyle
  • Graphical and Digital Media Applications
  • Operating Systems
  • Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
  • Atmospheric Sciences
  • Environmental Geography
  • Geology and the Lithosphere
  • Maps and Map-making
  • Meteorology and Climatology
  • Oceanography and Hydrology
  • Palaeontology
  • Physical Geography and Topography
  • Regional Geography
  • Soil Science
  • Urban Geography
  • Browse content in Engineering and Technology
  • Agriculture and Farming
  • Biological Engineering
  • Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
  • Electronics and Communications Engineering
  • Energy Technology
  • Engineering (General)
  • Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
  • History of Engineering and Technology
  • Mechanical Engineering and Materials
  • Technology of Industrial Chemistry
  • Transport Technology and Trades
  • Browse content in Environmental Science
  • Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
  • Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
  • Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
  • Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
  • Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
  • Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
  • Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
  • History of Science and Technology
  • Browse content in Materials Science
  • Ceramics and Glasses
  • Composite Materials
  • Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
  • Nanotechnology
  • Browse content in Mathematics
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Biomathematics and Statistics
  • History of Mathematics
  • Mathematical Education
  • Mathematical Finance
  • Mathematical Analysis
  • Numerical and Computational Mathematics
  • Probability and Statistics
  • Pure Mathematics
  • Browse content in Neuroscience
  • Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
  • Development of the Nervous System
  • Disorders of the Nervous System
  • History of Neuroscience
  • Invertebrate Neurobiology
  • Molecular and Cellular Systems
  • Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
  • Neuroscientific Techniques
  • Sensory and Motor Systems
  • Browse content in Physics
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
  • Biological and Medical Physics
  • Classical Mechanics
  • Computational Physics
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
  • History of Physics
  • Mathematical and Statistical Physics
  • Measurement Science
  • Nuclear Physics
  • Particles and Fields
  • Plasma Physics
  • Quantum Physics
  • Relativity and Gravitation
  • Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
  • Browse content in Psychology
  • Affective Sciences
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Criminal and Forensic Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Educational Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Health Psychology
  • History and Systems in Psychology
  • Music Psychology
  • Neuropsychology
  • Organizational Psychology
  • Psychological Assessment and Testing
  • Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
  • Psychology Professional Development and Training
  • Research Methods in Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Browse content in Social Sciences
  • Browse content in Anthropology
  • Anthropology of Religion
  • Human Evolution
  • Medical Anthropology
  • Physical Anthropology
  • Regional Anthropology
  • Social and Cultural Anthropology
  • Theory and Practice of Anthropology
  • Browse content in Business and Management
  • Business Ethics
  • Business Strategy
  • Business History
  • Business and Technology
  • Business and Government
  • Business and the Environment
  • Comparative Management
  • Corporate Governance
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health Management
  • Human Resource Management
  • Industrial and Employment Relations
  • Industry Studies
  • Information and Communication Technologies
  • International Business
  • Knowledge Management
  • Management and Management Techniques
  • Operations Management
  • Organizational Theory and Behaviour
  • Pensions and Pension Management
  • Public and Nonprofit Management
  • Strategic Management
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
  • Criminal Justice
  • Criminology
  • Forms of Crime
  • International and Comparative Criminology
  • Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
  • Development Studies
  • Browse content in Economics
  • Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
  • Asian Economics
  • Behavioural Finance
  • Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
  • Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
  • Economic History
  • Economic Systems
  • Economic Methodology
  • Economic Development and Growth
  • Financial Markets
  • Financial Institutions and Services
  • General Economics and Teaching
  • Health, Education, and Welfare
  • History of Economic Thought
  • International Economics
  • Labour and Demographic Economics
  • Law and Economics
  • Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
  • Microeconomics
  • Public Economics
  • Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
  • Welfare Economics
  • Browse content in Education
  • Adult Education and Continuous Learning
  • Care and Counselling of Students
  • Early Childhood and Elementary Education
  • Educational Equipment and Technology
  • Educational Strategies and Policy
  • Higher and Further Education
  • Organization and Management of Education
  • Philosophy and Theory of Education
  • Schools Studies
  • Secondary Education
  • Teaching of a Specific Subject
  • Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
  • Teaching Skills and Techniques
  • Browse content in Environment
  • Applied Ecology (Social Science)
  • Climate Change
  • Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
  • Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
  • Natural Disasters (Environment)
  • Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
  • Browse content in Human Geography
  • Cultural Geography
  • Economic Geography
  • Political Geography
  • Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Communication Studies
  • Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
  • Browse content in Politics
  • African Politics
  • Asian Politics
  • Chinese Politics
  • Comparative Politics
  • Conflict Politics
  • Elections and Electoral Studies
  • Environmental Politics
  • European Union
  • Foreign Policy
  • Gender and Politics
  • Human Rights and Politics
  • Indian Politics
  • International Relations
  • International Organization (Politics)
  • International Political Economy
  • Irish Politics
  • Latin American Politics
  • Middle Eastern Politics
  • Political Behaviour
  • Political Economy
  • Political Institutions
  • Political Methodology
  • Political Communication
  • Political Philosophy
  • Political Sociology
  • Political Theory
  • Politics and Law
  • Public Policy
  • Public Administration
  • Quantitative Political Methodology
  • Regional Political Studies
  • Russian Politics
  • Security Studies
  • State and Local Government
  • UK Politics
  • US Politics
  • Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
  • African Studies
  • Asian Studies
  • East Asian Studies
  • Japanese Studies
  • Latin American Studies
  • Middle Eastern Studies
  • Native American Studies
  • Scottish Studies
  • Browse content in Research and Information
  • Research Methods
  • Browse content in Social Work
  • Addictions and Substance Misuse
  • Adoption and Fostering
  • Care of the Elderly
  • Child and Adolescent Social Work
  • Couple and Family Social Work
  • Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
  • Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
  • Emergency Services
  • Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
  • International and Global Issues in Social Work
  • Mental and Behavioural Health
  • Social Justice and Human Rights
  • Social Policy and Advocacy
  • Social Work and Crime and Justice
  • Social Work Macro Practice
  • Social Work Practice Settings
  • Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
  • Welfare and Benefit Systems
  • Browse content in Sociology
  • Childhood Studies
  • Community Development
  • Comparative and Historical Sociology
  • Economic Sociology
  • Gender and Sexuality
  • Gerontology and Ageing
  • Health, Illness, and Medicine
  • Marriage and the Family
  • Migration Studies
  • Occupations, Professions, and Work
  • Organizations
  • Population and Demography
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Social Theory
  • Social Movements and Social Change
  • Social Research and Statistics
  • Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
  • Sociology of Religion
  • Sociology of Education
  • Sport and Leisure
  • Urban and Rural Studies
  • Browse content in Warfare and Defence
  • Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
  • Land Forces and Warfare
  • Military Administration
  • Military Life and Institutions
  • Naval Forces and Warfare
  • Other Warfare and Defence Issues
  • Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
  • Weapons and Equipment

The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

Author webpage

  • Cite Icon Cite
  • Permissions Icon Permissions

Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction explores the exciting developments in the sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This time witnessed such fervent investigations of the natural world that the period has been called the ‘Scientific Revolution.’ New ideas and discoveries not only redefined what human beings believed, knew, and could do, but also forced them to redefine themselves with respect to the strange new worlds revealed by the technology of the day. The story is told from the perspective of the historical characters themselves, emphasizing their background, context, reasoning, and motivations, and dispelling well-worn myths about the history of science.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

  • Google Scholar Indexing
  • GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]

Personal account

  • Sign in with email/username & password
  • Get email alerts
  • Save searches
  • Purchase content
  • Activate your purchase/trial code
  • Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

  • Sign in with username/password
  • Recommend to your librarian
  • Institutional account management
  • Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

  • Click Sign in through your institution.
  • Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
  • When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
  • Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

  • Click Sign in through society site.
  • When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

  • View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
  • View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

External resource

  • In the OUP print catalogue
  • About Oxford Academic
  • Publish journals with us
  • University press partners
  • What we publish
  • New features  
  • Open access
  • Rights and permissions
  • Accessibility
  • Advertising
  • Media enquiries
  • Oxford University Press
  • Oxford Languages
  • University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

  • Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
  • Cookie settings
  • Cookie policy
  • Privacy policy
  • Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Scientific revolution essay

Of all the innovations that Europe experienced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the most influential was intellectual transformation that we refer to as the “scientific revolution”. It must be noticed that precisely because there was a revolution, a lot of intellectuals still ignored or opposed the change going on around them. The key point of what happened in the seventeenth century was new discovery, scientists were able to break away from the classical tradition and make their own findings.

In Italy, Galileo Galilei first applied the telescope and microscope to scientific work and experimented with them. He showed that the improvement of investigatory instruments made the technical advance possible. On the basis of his own observations, he accepted the conclusion of Copernicus that the earth moved around the sun and not vice versa. He proved experimentally that Aristotle had committed an error in saying that heavy bodies would fall in a vacuum more rapidly than light bodies. In other words, he moved toward a proper understanding of gravity.

For Galileo made it impossible to believe in the old theory about earth as center of universe he was brought before the Italian inquisition as a potential heretic. Yet his achievements were vital to further astronomical knowledge. Galileo’s empirical work only confirmed that there were new ways of getting at truth, and this was really the foundation of the scientific revolution. A slightly different approach was taken by Rene Descartes, also in the early seventeenth century. He made major strides in developing mathematics.

Ultimately, the mathematical approach, combined with greater empiricism, such as Galileo’s, produced the modern scientific method, deduction. The third figure is Francis Bacon, who, like Descartes, made few actual scientific discoveries. He for the first time set forth a philosophy of empiricism. The way to knowledge was not through abstract reasoning, but through repeated experiments which, when they produced a predictable result, represented new truth. The interest in science boomed from the mid-seventeenth century onward.

Related essays:

  • What Comprises a Revolution? CHAPTER I essay
  • Information versus Industrial Evolution essay
  • Reputation of Science essay
  • Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment essay

The scientific revolution made a considerable break with the medieval-Renaissance approach to knowledge. Galileo, Bacon, and Descartes displayed a mutual scorn for received knowledge. What had previously been said about the physical universe, needed to be re-reasoned, according to Descartes, or exposed to direct experimentation, according to Galileo and Bacon. The later seventeenth century saw steady advance in scientific knowledge. The gains in biology were great. Microscopes allowed new knowledge of invisible, unicellular organisms.

The knowledge in medicine was actively accumulated through medical practice: microscopic anatomy, the circulation of blood, inoculation and vaccination, and so on. The powerful breakthrough in chemistry also occurred in the seventeenth century. The discovery of oxygen, causative relation between oxygen and burning, water formula, and many other discoveries led to the important conclusion that the world consisted of “mixtures” of basic elements. The great developments in astronomy and physics became the basis for calling what happened an intellectual revolution.

Advances from Copernicus and Galileo accrued steadily, as observation showed elliptical instead of circular orbits of planets about the sun. In such work telescopic observation was combined with mathematical calculation. The culmination of physics development came with Isaac Newton and his explanation of universe completely through the use of mathematics with the help of which he could show that the universe operated in a completely rational way. Through his study and telescopic observations of the behavior of planetary bodies, Newton discovered a phenomenon of physical attraction between them, which is called gravity.

Speaking about scientific revolution in terms of intellectual development we must mention another prominent figure, John Locke. He was an important political philosopher, hostile to absolute rule and a defender of toleration and individual rights. He believed that government owed duties to its citizens and even assumed the right of revolution when these duties were not fulfilled. Locke rejected the medieval approach which posited knowledge by faith, which might then be followed by reason. He also rejected Descartes’ idea of innate knowledge.

Hence, he supported the idea of the newborn human mind as a blank sheet of paper, to be filled in by rational experience. The scientific revolution then, consisted of: immense new discoveries in physics and biology; of a related belief that nature was orderly and that human reason could progressively grasp more and more of how it works; of a denial of the necessity of faith. God might still be around, but he was just part of the rational order, who put the works together and then let them run.

91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best scientific revolution topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 good essay topics on scientific revolution, 🔎 simple & easy scientific revolution essay titles, ❓ questions about the scientific revolution.

  • The Impact of Scientific Revolution on Christianity Questioning the supremacy of church as the most powerful institution in the Western society, the scientific advances revolutionized the existing system of knowledge and became an important player in exploring the phenomena of the surrounding […]
  • The Scientific Revolution: From Astronomy to Physics The Scientific Revolution, which occurred roughly between the 15th and 16th centuries, refers to a period of innovations in science and technology, the entirety of which had originated from the notion that the Earth is […]
  • Scientific Revolution and Its Consequences Engaging humans in scientific processes and achievements can help decrease the firmness of their beliefs and give them a chance to technological progress.
  • The Scientific Revolution as the Greatest Achievements by the Humanity The Scientific Revolution can be explained as a historic phenomenon which occurred between The Enlightenment and the beginning of industrialization in the end of the eighteenth century.
  • Why the Scientific Revolution did not Take Place in China–Or Did It? The history of science and technology in China contributed much to the advancement of the global knowledge in science and technology.
  • Excerpt from the Structure of Scientific Revolutions In the case of psychology, the discipline has yet to settle on a single dominant paradigm, leading to a continued evolution of the field and a lack of a shared understanding of its basic foundations.
  • The Role of Galileo in Scientific Revolution In an article by Little Edmund on Galileo, science, and the church, the writer clearly shows us that the church was hostile towards science and scientific facts.
  • New Way of Thinking: The Scientific Revolution He was really questioning the religious authority of the church and above all trying to establish a new source of authority in the church.
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Understanding scientific objectivity is vital to considering the validity of gained evidence and the possible influences that may sway the conclusions of the study.
  • “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Kuhn A scientific paradigm may be defined as a set of discoveries and achievements recognized and accepted by the scientific community at a given moment in time.
  • Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment The emergence of shared spaces open to scientific debate contributed to the propagation of the inquiring spirit of the era, which helped to shape the cultures of many European states.
  • “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn Thus, it can be argued that the process of dislodging a scientific paradigm by a new one is congruous with a nonrelativistic approach.
  • Scientific Revolution’ Study for 7th Grade Students At the age of 12-14, children are learning to analyze and evaluate their knowledge, which is why the overarching goal of a middle-school world history course is to teach children to think like historians. The […]
  • Galileo Galilei and His Role in the Scientific Revolution Galileo’s later discoveries of the Venus gave more proof to the Copernicus theory that it is the Sun at the centre of the universe and not the Earth.
  • Scientific Revolution History: Attitude of Mechanization The above statement refers to the modernization as enshrined in the need for empirical inference as an exponential factor of knowledge creation and dispersion.
  • The History of 19th Century Scientific Revolution People of the twenty-first century welcome such changes and understand the importance of the revolution that shaped the development of the society.
  • History: Evolution of the Scientific Revolution The onset of the scientific revolution is associated with Copernican technical inventions of 1543 and the discovery of motion science by Galileo.
  • The Significance of Scientific Revolution in Our History People used religion to explain the happenings of and within the universe by viewing the universe as godly beginning with nothing to do with scientific development.
  • Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” He adds on to say that Kuhn’s analysis of the scientific revolution does not provide a reality of understanding the world in the context of science.
  • Historiography of Science and the Scientific Revolution His contribution to the field of philosophy of science resulted in a paradigm shift on various aspects of positivists’ doctrine and insights into the history of science1.
  • Thomas Kuhn’s Scientific Revolution The implicit assumptions of a paradigm act as criterion that is used in study or to validate study. A paradigm shift is a radical change in the way science as a study and criterion for […]
  • Thomas Kuhn’s Scientific Revolutions However, Kuhn notes that, this process of reconstructing and reconsidering assumptions and facts is tedious and time consuming; therefore, he offers a way of creating paradigms in the process of scientific revolution.
  • The History of Humanities Scientific Revolution Therefore, the need to strengthen natural science as an independent discipline led to the establishment of scientific societies such as the Accademia del Cimento, the Academie des Sciences, and the Royal Society of London, which […]
  • The Greatest Developments of the Scientific Revolution
  • Significant Advances During the Scientific Revolution
  • The Relation Between Religion and Science in the Scientific Revolution
  • Enlightenment and Environmental Creation by the Scientific Revolution
  • Good the Effects Scientific Revolution Had on Religion
  • Relationship Between Medieval Modernism and the Scientific Revolution
  • Impact of the Scientific Revolution on the World Today
  • The Importance of the Scientific Revolution in European History
  • The Scientific Revolution and Its Impact on Society
  • The Scientific Revolution’s Impact on Western Perspectives
  • Renaissance Artist Engineers: The Start of the Scientific Revolution
  • The Pros and Cons of the Scientific Revolution
  • Political and Socioeconomic Conditions Necessary for a Scientific Revolution
  • Isaac Newton: The Father of the Scientific Revolution
  • The Role of Isaac Newton in the Scientific Revolution
  • History of the Scientific Revolution
  • Medicine in the Scientific Revolution
  • Humans and Nature During the Scientific Revolution
  • The Scientific Revolution From Religion to Politics
  • Absolutism: The Scientific Revolution and Agricultural Revolution
  • Changes Brought About the Scientific Revolution
  • Path Dependence, Competition, and Succession in the Dynamics of Scientific Revolution
  • The Link Between Scientific Revolution and the French Revolution
  • The Scientific Revolution and How It Changed Productivity in the Western Industry
  • Scientific Revolution and Government Attitudes About Science
  • The Scientific Revolution: From Church Authority to Science Authority
  • The Scientific Revolution: The Most Revolutionary of All Revolutions
  • Scientific Discoveries of the Scientific Revolution
  • The Ideas of the Scientific Revolution
  • Galileo’s Scientific Revolution Against the Church
  • The Greatest Causes of the Scientific Revolution
  • The Argument Between Scientific Revolution and Church’s Beliefs
  • The Scientific Revolution of Western Civilizations
  • Contribution of Galileo Galilei in the Scientific Revolution
  • The Personalities That Contributed to the Changes During the Scientific Revolution
  • Political Factors of the Scientific Revolution
  • The Scientific Revolution and Its Effect on Religion
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution Lead to the Enlightenment
  • Intellectual Revolution Resulting From Scientific Revolution
  • What Major Changes Occurred During the Scientific Revolution in the 17th Century?
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment Shape the Industrial Revolution?
  • What Were the Roots of the Scientific Revolution?
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution Affect Many Aspects of Life in Europe?
  • Was the Scientific Revolution a Real Threat to Western Christian Values?
  • What Were the Causes and Effects of the Scientific Revolution and How Did It Change the World in the Years 1500–1800?
  • How Did the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution Lead to a More Secular and Democratic Society?
  • What Was the Contribution of Francis Bacon to the Scientific Revolution?
  • How Did Isaac Newton Start the Scientific Revolution?
  • Was There Any Connection Between Religion and Science in the Scientific Revolution?
  • What Is the Relationship Between the Development of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution?
  • How Did Scientists and Philosophers Change Medieval Ideas About Science and Natural Law During the Scientific Revolution?
  • What Personalities Contributed to the Changes During the Scientific Revolution?
  • Did the Scientific Revolution Affect Religion?
  • Who Were the Supporters and Opponents of the Scientific Revolution?
  • What Was the Role of Women During the Scientific Revolution?
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution Create the Environment for the Enlightenment?
  • What Was the Impact of the Scientific Revolution on Western Perspectives?
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution Affect People’s Beliefs?
  • What Were the Intellectual, Social, and Religious Consequences of the Scientific Revolution for the West?
  • Are There Connections Between the Scientific Revolution and the French Revolution?
  • Was the Scientific Revolution Mainly the Result of Technological Advances from the Renaissance?
  • What Did the Scientific Revolution Bring to the European World?
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution Change Productivity in Western Industry?
  • What Was the Social Paradigm of Change Represented by the Scientific Revolution?
  • How Did the Scientific Revolution Affect People’s View of the Catholic Church?
  • Why Was the Scientific Revolution in Europe and Not in China?
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 29). 91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/scientific-revolution-essay-topics/

"91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 29 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/scientific-revolution-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 29 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/scientific-revolution-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/scientific-revolution-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/scientific-revolution-essay-topics/.

  • Scientist Paper Topics
  • European History Essay Titles
  • Geometry Research Ideas
  • Human Development Research Ideas
  • Metaphysics Questions
  • Microbiology Questions
  • Ontology Topics
  • History Topics

Home — Essay Samples — History — Medieval Europe — Scientific Revolution

one px

Essays on Scientific Revolution

Nicolaus copernicus accomplishments, the major contributors to the scientific revolution, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

The Greatest Developments of The Scientific Revolution and Its Impact on The World Today

The importance of the scientific revolution in european history, the contributions of the agricultural revolution, the scientific revolution, and the enlightenment to the industrial revolution, the role of scientific revolution, the enlightenment, the french revolution, and the industrial revolution in the history of europe, let us write you an essay from scratch.

  • 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
  • Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

The Theory of Dualism by Philosopher René Descartes

The link between scientific revolution and the french revolution, robert millikan and his oil drop experiment, women and nature in carolyn merchant's "the death of nature", review on micro/nano energy generation (mechanical).

c. 1400 - c. 1690

The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that witnessed fundamental transformations in people’s attitudes towards the natural world, resulted in developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry. The Scientific Revolution was characterized by an emphasis on abstract reasoning, quantitative thought, and the development of an experimental scientific method. The publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" in 1543, is considered as beginning of Scientific Revolution.

The Scientific Revolution began in astronomy, when the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus suggested a comprehensive heliocentric theory. In 1543, he published his work "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" about the heliocentric model of the solar system tried to demonstrate that the sun was the center of the universe. At the beginning of the 17th century, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler placed the Copernican hypothesis on firm astronomical footing.

During the Scientific Revolution, scientists began increasingly applying quantitative measurements to the measurement of physical phenomena on the earth, which translated into the rapid development of mathematics and physics. The work of Sir Isaac Newton "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (1687) represents the culmination of the Scientific Revolution at the end of the 17th century. Also, his work "Principia" formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.

Relevant topics

  • Imperialism
  • Middle Ages
  • Romanticism
  • French Revolution
  • American Revolution
  • Industrial Revolution
  • Great Depression
  • Frederick Douglass
  • Manifest Destiny
  • Alexander The Great

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

  • Instructions Followed To The Letter
  • Deadlines Met At Every Stage
  • Unique And Plagiarism Free

science revolution essay

IMAGES

  1. The Scientific Revolution Essay

    science revolution essay

  2. Scientific Revolution Essay Examples & Outline

    science revolution essay

  3. The Scientific Revolution: A Paradigm Shift from Miracles to Facts Essay

    science revolution essay

  4. phl3B science essay

    science revolution essay

  5. ⇉The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment Essay Example

    science revolution essay

  6. Scientific Revolution Essay

    science revolution essay

VIDEO

  1. WellSpa Io science revolution by doc Joe Chang

  2. Unleashing the Power of Indian Scientists: Igniting a Scientific Revolution

  3. Революция в физике. Перспективы развития чел-ва 2/2

  4. THE SCIENCE REVOLUTION IS HERE (Season 2: Episode 8)

COMMENTS

  1. Scientific Revolution

    Scientific Revolution, drastic change in scientific thought that took place during the 16th and 17th centuries. A new view of nature emerged during the Scientific Revolution, replacing the Greek view that had dominated science for almost 2,000 years. ... To provide a firm basis for these discussions, societies began to publish scientific papers ...

  2. Scientific Revolution

    The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, ... and his essay on optics was the first published mention of this law. Christiaan Huygens wrote several works in the area of optics.

  3. Scientific Revolution

    The Scientific Revolution (1500-1700), which occurred first in Europe before spreading worldwide, witnessed a new approach to knowledge gathering - the scientific method - which utilised new technologies like the telescope to observe, measure, and test things never seen before. Thanks to the development of dedicated institutions, scientists conducted yet more experiments and shared their ...

  4. The Scientific Revolution

    The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature. ... who proposed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) that the only true knowledge that could ...

  5. READ: The Scientific Revolution (article)

    The Scientific Revolution. By Eman M. Elshaikh. The familiar story of the Scientific Revolution runs from Copernicus to Newton, but the full story extends far beyond Europe, beyond men, and beyond the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The universe doesn't revolve around you.

  6. The Scientific Revolution

    Abstract. This chapter surveys the transformations in scientific understanding that took place during the period usually known as the Scientific Revolution, roughly from 1500 to 1700, It follows the growing emphasis on experiment in science and charts the shift from an Aristotelian and Ptolemaic geocentric view of the universe to a Copernican ...

  7. Essay Review The Scientific Revolution: Five Books about It

    812 John Henry The Scientific Revolution: Five Books about It One of the aims of William E. Burns's The Scientific Revolution in Global Perspective is to show how Western science came to be adopted by other civilizations. We can see this, for example, in the subheadings of Chapter 9, "The Scientific Revolution in Asia" (pp. 142-160):

  8. The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry

    Part 1 Defining the Nature of the Scientific Revolution: The Great Tradition - Concepts and approaches in studying the Scientific Revolution The New Science in a Wider Setting - The cultural, social and historical context of the new science. Part 2 The Search for Causes of the Scientific Revolution: The Emergence of Early Modern Science from Previous Western Thought on Nature - Why the ...

  9. PDF The Scientific Revolution

    This historiographie. and bibliographic essay can. Scientific Revolution is the acknowl. edged birthplace of the history of. science, it was the first area to. benefit from the professionalization. of the discipline, from its increas. ing specialization, diversification of methods, and from the simultaneous. broadening of scope and narrowing.

  10. Scientific Revolution, Ideologies of the

    The Scientific Revolution was one of the central concepts in the history of science during most of the twentieth century. Its central idea is that a unique break in intellectual history generated modern science - or science tout court.Historians and philosophers of science have long debated the exact geo-historical coordinates of such an event, including which disciplines were involved in it ...

  11. The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

    Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction explores the exciting developments in the sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This time witnessed such fervent investigations of the natural world that the period has been called the 'Scientific Revolution.'. New ideas and discoveries not only redefined what human beings ...

  12. Scientific Thought through the History

    Scientific Revolution. The scientific revolution was a period of integration of new ideas into the reason of nature. The period saw significant scientific changes in astronomy, human anatomy, physics, and chemistry. Questions of reason on matters of nature by the brilliant minds characterized this period. We will write a custom essay on your ...

  13. Scientific Revolution History

    The History of 19th Century Scientific Revolution Essay. Any revolution is a great change in the life of any society. This can be a political, economic, technological and even psychological change. Thus, Scientific Revolution, which took place in the nineteenth century, enabled the humanity to make a great stride forward. People of the twenty ...

  14. PDF The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

    The essay that follows is the first full published report on a project originally conceived almost fifteen years ago. At that time I was a graduate student in theoretical physics already within sight of the end of my dissertation. A fortunate involvement with an experimental college course treating physical science for the non-scientist provided

  15. The Scientific Revolution: From Astronomy to Physics Essay

    The Scientific Revolution, which occurred roughly between the 15th and 16th centuries, refers to a period of innovations in science and technology, the entirety of which had originated from the notion that the Earth is not at the center of the universe. While the shifts in scientific thought first started in the field of astronomy, they rapidly ...

  16. Scientific Revolution Essay

    The Scientific Revolution was an era where Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei. Nicolaus Copernicus, and Johannes Kepler challenged the status quo, and where many discoveries that would change the way people thought about everything including the universe were made. Before the Scientific Revolution happened. 741 Words. 3 Pages.

  17. The Scientific Revolution

    The Scientific Revolution - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas. The scientific revolution was a period of intellectual progress in Europe from the 16th to the 18th century. During this era, scientific inquiry underwent a dramatic transformation, shifting from a focus on traditional Aristotelian philosophy and theology to empirical observation ...

  18. The Scientific Revolution Significance

    The Significance of Scientific Revolution in Our History Essay. It is true that western civilization can in another term be called "scientific civilization.". The scientific revolution was first experienced in 1543 when Nicolas Copernicus first published 'de revolutionibus orbium coelestium' book, and later 'De humans corporis fabric ...

  19. The Effect of Scientific Revolution on Society

    The Scientific Revolution had multiple effects on society. Specifically, the Scientific Revolution paved the road for changes in people's mindsets, facilitated the economy's development, and sowed the seed for the shift in political powers. First, the Scientific Revolution offers a platform for a drastic change in people's mindsets thanks ...

  20. Scientific revolution essay Essay

    Scientific revolution essay. Of all the innovations that Europe experienced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the most influential was intellectual transformation that we refer to as the "scientific revolution". It must be noticed that precisely because there was a revolution, a lot of intellectuals still ignored or opposed the ...

  21. 91 Scientific Revolution Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

    The Scientific Revolution: From Astronomy to Physics. The Scientific Revolution, which occurred roughly between the 15th and 16th centuries, refers to a period of innovations in science and technology, the entirety of which had originated from the notion that the Earth is […] Scientific Revolution and Its Consequences.

  22. Essays on Scientific Revolution

    Essays on Scientific Revolution. Essay examples. Essay topics. General Overview. 11 essay samples found. Sort & filter. 1 ... The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that witnessed fundamental transformations in people's attitudes towards the natural world, resulted in developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and ...