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Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630), a key figure in the scientific revolution, was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer of famed brilliance. He is best known for his laws of planetary motion, expounded in the two books Astronomia nova and Harmonice Mundi. Kepler was a professor of mathematics at the University of Graz, court mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II, and court astrologer to General Wallenstein. Early in his career, Kepler was an assistant to Tycho Brahe. Kepler's career also coincided with that of Galileo Galilei. He is sometimes referred to as "the first theoretical astrophysicist", although Carl Sagan also referred to him as the last scientific astrologer.

Life

Kepler was born on December 27, 1571 at the Imperial Free City of Weil der Stadt (now part of the Stuttgart Region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 30 km west of Stuttgart's center). His grandfather had been Lord Mayor of that town, but by the time Johannes was born, the Kepler family fortunes were in decline. His father earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and abandoned the family when Johannes was 17. His mother, an inn-keeper's daughter, had a reputation for involvement in witchcraft. Born prematurely, Johannes is said to have been a weak and sickly child, but despite his ill health, he was precociously brilliant - he often impressed travelers at the inn [aforementioned] with his phenomenal mathematical faculty as a child. Though he excelled in his schooling, Kepler was frequently bullied, and was plagued by a belief that he was physically repulsive, thoroughly unlikable and, compared to the other pupils, an outsider. This ostracizing probably led him to turn to the world of ideas, as well as an abiding religious conviction, for solace. He was introduced to astronomy/astrology at an early age, and developed a love for that discipline that would span his entire life. At age five, he observed the Comet of 1577, writing that he "...was taken by [his] mother to a high place to look at it." At age nine, he observed another astronomical event, the Lunar eclipse of 1580, recording that he remembered being "called outdoors" to see it and that the moon "appeared quite red." In 1587, Kepler began attending the University of Tübingen, where he proved himself to be a superb mathematician. Upon his graduation from that school in 1591, he went on to pursue study in theology, becoming a part of the Tübingen faculty. However, before he took his final exams he was recommended for the vacant post of teacher of mathematics and astronomy at the Protestant school in Graz, Austria. He accepted the position in April of 1594, at the age of 23. In April 1597, Kepler married Barbara Müller. She died in 1611 and was outlived by two children. In December 1599, Tycho Brahe wrote to Kepler, inviting Kepler to assist him at Benátky nad Jizerou outside Prague. After Tycho's death, Kepler was appointed Imperial Mathematician (from November 1601 to 1630) to the Habsburg Emperors. In October 1604, Kepler observed the supernova which was subsequently named Kepler's Star. In January 1612 the Emperor died, and Kepler took the post of provincial mathematician in Linz. In 1611, Kepler published a monograph on the origins of snowflakes, the first known work on the subject. He correctly theorized that their hexagonal nature was due to cold, but did not ascertain a physical cause for this. The question of snowflakes was not resolved until the 20th century. On March 8, 1618 Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion: distance cubed over time squared. He initially rejected this idea, but later confirmed it on May 15 of the same year. In August of 1620, Katherine, Kepler's mother, was arrested in Leonberg as a witch; she was imprisoned for 14 months. She was released in October 1621 after attempts to convict her failed. Even though she was subjected to torture, she refused to confess to the charges. However, only the courageous personal intervention of Kepler (despite the risk to be arrested as well) and his reputation as the famous Imperial Mathematician rescued her.

Death

On November 15, 1630 Kepler died of a fever in Regensburg. In 1632, only two years after his death, his grave was demolished by the Swedish army in the Thirty Years' War.

Work

Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, and no consensus on the scientific method as the correct way to decide what was correct or incorrect in science. His ideas are therefore a fascinating mixture of what would today be considered mathematical physics and nonsensical mysticism. Although the subsections below separate the two, Kepler did not see them as separate. Kepler was a Pythagorean numbers mystic. That is, he considered mathematical relationships to be at the base of all nature. Thus all creation was an integrated whole. This may be contrasted with the Platonic and Aristotelian notion that the Earth was fundamentally different from the rest of the universe, being composed of different substances and with different natural laws applying. Thus Kepler was the first to attempt to discover universal laws. This quest led him to apply terrestrial physics to celestial bodies, which produced the three Laws of Planetary Motion. Conversely, he was convinced that celestial bodies influence terrestrial events. One result of this belief was his correct assessment of the Moon's role in generating the tides, years before Galileo's incorrect formulation. Another was his belief that someday it would be possible to develop a "scientific astrology," while not believing that any astrologic rules currently propounded were at all valid.

Scientific work

Kepler's laws

Kepler inherited from Tycho Brahe a wealth of the most accurate raw data ever collected on the positions of the planets. The difficulty was to make sense of it. The orbital motions of the other planets are viewed from the vantage point of the Earth, which is itself orbiting the sun. As shown in the example below, this can cause the other planets to appear to move in strange loops. Kepler concentrated on the orbit of Mars, but he had to know the orbit of the Earth accurately first. In order to do this, he needed a surveyor's baseline. In a stroke of pure genius, he used Mars and the Sun as his baseline, since without knowing the actual orbit of Mars, he knew that it would be in the same place in its orbit at times separated by its orbital period. Thus the orbital positions of the Earth could be computed, and from them the orbit of Mars. He was able to deduce his planetary laws without knowing the exact distances of the planets from the sun, since his geometrical analysis needed only the ratios of their solar distances. Image:Retrograde-motion-of-mars.png Kepler, unlike Brahe, held to the heliocentric model of the solar system, and starting from that framework, he made twenty years of painstaking trial-and-error attempts at making some sense out of the data. He finally arrived at his three laws of planetary motion: three laws of planetary motion 1. Kepler's elliptical orbit law: The planets orbit the sun in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus. 2. Kepler's equal-area law: The line connecting a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal amounts of time. 3. Kepler's law of periods: The time required for a planet to orbit the sun, called its period, is proportional to the long axis of the ellipse raised to the 3/2 power. The constant of proportionality is the same for all the planets. Using these laws, he was the first astronomer to successfully predict a transit of Venus (for the year 1631). Kepler's laws were the first clear evidence in favor of the heliocentric model of the solar system, because they only came out to be so simple under the heliocentric assumption. Kepler, however, never discovered the deeper reasons for the laws, despite many years of what would now be considered non-scientific mystical speculation. Isaac Newton eventually showed that the laws were a consequence of his laws of motion and law of universal gravitation. (From the modern vantage point, the equal-area law is more easily understood as arising from conservation of angular momentum.)

1604 supernova

angular momentum On October 17, 1604, Kepler observed that an exceptionally bright star had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus. (It was first observed by several others on October 9.) The appearance of the star, which Kepler described in his book De Stella nova in pede Serpentarii ('On the New Star in Ophiuchus's Foot'), provided further evidence that the cosmos was not changeless; this was to influence Galileo in his argument. It has since been determined that the star was a supernova, the second in a generation, later called Kepler's Star or Supernova 1604. No further supernovae have been observed in the Milky Way, though others outside our galaxy have been seen.

Other scientific and mathematical work

Kepler also made fundamental investigations into combinatorics, geometrical optimization, and natural phenomena such as snowflakes, always with an emphasis on form and design. He was also one of the founders of modern optics, defining e.g. antiprisms and the Kepler telescope (see Kepler's books Astronomiae Pars Optica — i.a. theoretical explanation of the camera obscura — and Dioptrice). In addition, since he was the first to recognize the non-convex regular solids (such as the stellated dodecahedra), they are named Kepler solids in his honor.

Mysticism and astrology

Mysticism

Kepler discovered the laws of planetary motion while trying to achieve the Pythagorean purpose of finding the harmony of the celestial spheres. In his cosmologic vision, it was not a coincidence that the number of perfect polyhedra was one less than the number of known planets. Having embraced the Copernican system, he set out to prove that the distances from the planets to the sun were given by spheres inside perfect polyhedra, all of which were nested inside each other. The smallest orbit, that of Mercury, was the innermost sphere. He thereby identified the five Platonic solids with the five intervals between the six known planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn; and the five classical elements. In 1596 Kepler published Mysterium Cosmographicum, or The Cosmic Mystery. Here is a selection explaining the relation between the planets and the Platonic solids: :… Before the universe was created, there were no numbers except the Trinity, which is God himself… For, the line and the plane imply no numbers: here infinitude itself reigns. Let us consider, therefore, the solids. We must first eliminate the irregular solids, because we are only concerned with orderly creation. There remain six bodies, the sphere and the five regular polyhedra. To the sphere corresponds the heaven. On the other hand, the dynamic world is represented by the flat-faces solids. Of these there are five: when viewed as boundaries, however, these five determine six distinct things: hence the six planets that revolve about the sun. This is also the reason why there are but six planets… sphere from Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596)]] sphere :… I have further shown that the regular solids fall into two groups: three in one, and two in the other. To the larger group belongs, first of all, the Cube, then the Pyramid, and finally the Dodecahedron. To the second group belongs, first, the Octahedron, and second, the Icosahedron. That is why the most important portion of the universe, the Earth—where God's image is reflected in man—separates the two groups. For, as I have proved next, the solids of the first group must lie beyond the earth's orbit, and those of the second group within… Thus I was led to assign the Cube to Saturn, the Tetrahedron to Jupiter, the Dodecahedron to Mars, the Icosahedron to Venus, and the Octahedron to Mercury… To emphasize his theory, Kepler envisaged an impressive model of the universe which shows a cube, inside a sphere, with a tetrahedron inscribed in it; another sphere inside it with a dodecahedron inscribed; a sphere with an icosahedron inscribed inside; and finally a sphere with an octahedron inscribed. Each of these celestial spheres had a planet embedded within them, and thus defined the planet's orbit. In his 1619 book, Harmonice Mundi or Harmony of the Worlds, as well as the aforementioned Mysterium Cosmographicum, he also made an association between the Platonic solids with the classical conception of the elements: the tetrahedron was the form of fire, the octahedron was that of air, the cube was earth, the icosahedron was water, and the dodecahedron was the cosmos as a whole or ether. There is some evidence this association was of ancient origin, as Plato tells of one Timaeus of Locri who thought of the Universe as being enveloped by a gigantic dodecahedron while the other four solids represent the "elements" of fire, air, earth, and water. In 1975, nine years after its founding, the College for Social and Economic Sciences Linz (Austria) was renamed Johannes Kepler University Linz in honor of Johannes Kepler, since he wrote his magnum opus harmonice mundi in Linz. To his disappointment, Kepler's attempts to fix the orbits of the planets within a set of polyhedrons never worked out, but it is a testimony to his integrity as a scientist that when the evidence mounted against the cherished theory he worked so hard to prove, he abandoned it. His most significant achievements came from the realization that the planets moved in elliptical, not circular, orbits. This realization was a direct consequence of his failed attempt to fit the planetary orbits within polyhedra. Kepler's willingness to abandon his most cherished theory in the face of precise observational evidence also indicates that he had a very modern attitude to scientific research. Kepler also made great steps in trying to describe the motion of the planets by appealing to a force which resembled magnetism, which he believed emanated from the sun. Although he did not discover gravity, he seems to have attempted to invoke the first empirical example of a universal law to explain the behaviour of both earthly and heavenly bodies.

Astrology

Kepler disdained astrologers who pandered to the tastes of the common man without knowledge of the abstract and general rules, but he saw compiling prognostications as a justified means of supplementing his meagre income. Yet, it would be a mistake to take Kepler's astrological interests as merely pecuniary. As one historian, John North, put it, 'had he not been an astrologer he would very probably have failed to produce his planetary astronomy in the form we have it.' Kepler believed in astrology in the sense that he was convinced that astrological aspects physically and really affected humans as well as the weather on earth. He strove to unravel how and why that was the case and tried to put astrology on a surer footing, which resulted in the On the more certain foundations of astrology (1601), in which, among other technical innovations, he was the first to propose the quincunx aspect. In The Intervening Third Man, or a warning to theologians, physicians and philosophers (1610), posing as a third man between the two extreme positions for and against astrology, Kepler advocated that a definite relationship between heavenly phenomena and earthly events could be established. At least 800 horoscopes and natal charts drawn up by Kepler are still extant, several of himself and his family, accompanied by some unflattering remarks. As part of his duties as district mathematician to Graz, Kepler issued a prognostication for 1595 in which he forecast a peasant uprising, Turkish invasion and bitter cold, all of which happened and brought him renown. Kepler is known to have compiled prognostications for 1595 to 1606, and from 1617 to 1624. As court mathematician, he explained to Rudolf II the horoscopes of the Emperor Augustus and Muhammad, and gave astrological prognosis for the outcome of a war between the Republic of Venice and Paul V. In the On the new star (1606) Kepler explicated the meaning of the new star of 1604 as the conversion of America, downfall of Islam and return of Christ. The De cometis libelli tres (1619) is also replete with astrological predictions.

Kepler on God

"I was merely thinking God's thoughts after him. Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature," wrote Kepler, "it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."

Writings by Kepler

astrological
- Mysterium cosmographicum (The Cosmic Mystery) (1596)
- Astronomiae Pars Optica (The Optical Part of Astronomy) (1604)
- De Stella nova in pede Serpentarii (On the New Star in Ophiuchus's Foot) (1604)
- Astronomia nova (New Astronomy) (1609)
- Dioptrice (Dioptre) (1611)
- Nova stereometria doliorum vinariorum (New Stereometry of wine barrels) (1615)
- Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae (published in three parts from 1618-1621)
- Harmonice Mundi (Harmony of the Worlds) (1619)
- Tabulae Rudolphinae (1627)
- Somnium (The Dream) (1634) - considered the first precursor of science fiction.

Kepler in fiction

- John Banville: Kepler: a novel. London: Secker & Warburg, 1981 ISBN 0-436-03264-3 (and later eds.). Also published: Boston, MA:Godine, 1983 ISBN 0-87923-438-5. Arthur Koestler : The Sleepwalkers; A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe. Publihed by Hutchinson. Synopsis; a profound outline of astrology from Pythagoras to Newton with weight given on Kepler.

Machines named in Kepler's honor

Kepler Space Observatory, a solar-orbiting, planet-hunting telescope due to be launched by NASA in 2008.

External links

- [http://posner.library.cmu.edu/Posner/books/annotation.cgi?call=520_K38PN Annotation: Posner Family Collection in Electronic Format] Harmonices mvndi The Harmony of the Worlds in fulltext facsimile in Latin
- Full text of [http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/12406 Kepler] by Walter W. Bryant, from Project Gutenberg
- [http://www.skyscript.co.uk/kepler.html Kepler and the "Music of the Spheres"]
- [http://www.dmoz.org/Science/Astronomy/History/People/Kepler,_Johannes/ Johannes Kepler Directory]
- [http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/8/christianson8art.htm Gale E. Christianson- Kepler's Somnium: Science Fiction and the Renaissance Scientist]
- Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes als:Johannes Kepler ko:요하네스 케플러 ja:ヨハネス・ケプラー

December 27

December 27 is the 361st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. (362nd in a leap year). There are 4 days remaining.

Events

- 1703 - Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty which gives preference to Portuguese imported wines into England.
- 1831 - Charles Darwin embarks on his historic journey aboard the HMS Beagle, where he will formulate the theory of evolution.
- 1836 - The worst ever avalanche in England occurs at Lewes, Sussex, killing 8 people.
- 1845 - Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time (Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia).
- 1904 - James Barrie's play Peter Pan premieres in London.
- 1904 - The Abbey Theatre opens.
- 1918 - Beginning of Great Poland Uprising, the Poles in Greater Poland (or Grand Duchy of Poznań) rise against the Germans
- 1932 - Radio City Music Hall opens
- 1945 - The World Bank is created with the signing of an agreement by 28 nations.
- 1945 - Korea is divided
- 1947 - Howdy Doody, a children's television program, makes its debut (NBC).
- 1949 - Indonesian National Revolution: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands grants Indonesia sovereignty.
- 1968 - The long-running radio program The Breakfast Club signs off for the last time (ABC radio).
- 1978 - Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.
- 1979 - The Soviet Union seizes control of Afghanistan and Babrak Karmal replaces overthrown and executed President Hafizullah Amin.
- 1985 - Palestinian guerrillas kill twenty people inside Rome and Vienna airports.
- 1985 - American naturalist Dian Fossey is found murdered in Rwanda.
- 1996 - Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram air base which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul.
- 1997 - Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland.
- 2001 - The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade relations with the United States.
- 2002 - Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya.

Births

- 1390 - Anne de Mortimer, claimant to the English throne (d. 1411)
- 1571 - Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (d. 1630)
- 1654 - Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (d. 1705)
- 1683 - Conyers Middleton, English minister (d. 1750)
- 1715 - Philippe de Noailles, duc de Mouchy, French soldier (d. 1794)
- 1717 - Pope Pius VI (d. 1799)
- 1721 - François Hemsterhuis, Dutch philosopher (d. 1790)
- 1773 - George Cayley, English scientist, inventor, and politician (d. 1857)
- 1822 - Louis Pasteur, French scientist (d. 1895)
- 1823 - Sir Mackenzie Bowell, fifth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1896)
- 1832 - Pavel Tretyakov, Russiand businessman and patron of art (d. 1897)
- 1879 - Sydney Greenstreet, English actor (d. 1954)
- 1888 - Thea von Harbou, German author and actress (d. 1954)
- 1896 - Carl Zuckmayer, German author and dramatist (d. 1977)
- 1896 - Louis Bromfield, American writer (d. 1956)
- 1900 - Hans Stuck, German race car driver (d. 1978)
- 1901 - Marlene Dietrich, German actress and singer (d. 1992)
- 1906 - Oscar Levant, American pianist, composer, and actor (d. 1972)
- 1907 - Sebastian Haffner, German journalist and writer (d. 1999)
- 1915 - William Masters, American gynecologist (d. 2001)
- 1915 - Gyula Zsengellér, Hungarian footballer
- 1917 - Onni Palaste, Finnish writer
- 1920 - Bruce Hobbs, American jockey (d. 2005)
- 1925 - Michel Piccoli, French actor
- 1927 - Agnes Nixon, American television producer, director, and writer
- 1934 - Larisa Latynina, Russian gymnast
- 1939 - John Amos, American actor
- 1943 - Cokie Roberts, American journalist
- 1948 - Gérard Depardieu, French actor
- 1949 - Carson Kievman, American composer
- 1959 - Gerina Dunwich, American author
- 1959 - Andre Tippett, American football player
- 1960 - Maryam d'Abo, British actress
- 1965 - Salman Khan, Indian actor
- 1966 - Bill Goldberg, American football player and professional wrestler
- 1969 - Sarah Vowell, American author and journalist
- 1971 - Chyna Doll, American professional wrestler
- 1971 - Duncan Ferguson, Scottish footballer
- 1973 - Wilson Cruz, Puerto Rican actor
- 1975 - Heather O'Rourke, American actress (d. 1988)
- 1979 - David Dunn, English footballer
- 1979 - Carson Palmer, American football player
- 1981 - Emilie de Ravin, Australian actress

Deaths

- 418 - Zosimus, Greek pope
- 1076 - Prince Svyatoslav II of Kiev (b. 1027)
- 1381 - Edmund de Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, English politician
- 1548 - Francesco Spiera, Italian protestant jurist (b. 1502)
- 1603 - Thomas Cartwright, English Puritan clergyman
- 1707 - Jean Mabillon, French palaeograopher and diplomat (b. 1632)
- 1737 - William Bowyer, English printer (b. 1663)
- 1743 - Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter (b. 1659)
- 1771 - Henri Pitot, French engineer (b. 1695)
- 1782 - Henry Home, Lord Kames, Scottish philosopher (b. 1697)
- 1800 - Hugh Blair, Scottish preacher and man of letters (b. 1718)
- 1812 - Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Lithuanian rabbi and founder of Chabad Hasidism (b. 1745)
- 1836 - Stephen F. Austin, American pioneer (b. 1793)
- 1858 - Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, French composer (b. 1785)
- 1896 - John Brown, British manufacturer (b. 1816)
- 1900 - William George Armstrong, English inventor, industrialist, and engineer (b. 1810)
- 1914 - Charles Martin Hall, American chemist and inventor (b. 1863)
- 1923 - Gustave Eiffel, French engineer and architect (b. 1832)
- 1925 - Sergei Yesenin, Russian poet (b. 1895)
- 1938 - Calvin Bridges, geneticist (b. 1889)
- 1938 - Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet (b. 1891)
- 1950 - Max Beckmann, German painter (b. 1884)
- 1953 - Julian Tuwim, Polish poet (b. 1894)
- 1955 - Alfred Francis Blakeney Carpenter, English soldier (b. 1881)
- 1966 - Guillermo Stábile, Argentine footballer (b. 1906)
- 1972 - Lester B. Pearson, fourteenth Prime Minister of Canada, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1897)
- 1974 - Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock, Russian physicist (b. 1898)
- 1978 - Houari Boumédienne, President of Algeria (b. 1932)
- 1981 - Hoagy Carmichael, American composer and singer (b. 1899)
- 1988 - Hal Ashby, American film director (b. 1929)
- 1992 - Kay Boyle, American writer (b. 1902)
- 1997 - Brendan Gill, American columnist and humorist (b. 1914)
- 1997 - Billy Wright, Irish Protestant paramilitary leader (b. 1960)
- 2002 - George Roy Hill, American film director (b. 1922)
- 2003 - Alan Bates, English actor (b. 1934)
- 2003 - Ivan Calderon, Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player (murdered) (b. 1962)

Holidays and Observances

- The second day of Christmas in Western Christianity.
- Feast of the Holy Innocents, Eastern Orthodox.
- Christmas in lieu if Christmas falls on a weekend

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/27 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.tnl.net/when/12/27 Today in History: December 27] ---- December 26 - December 28 - November 27 - January 27 -- listing of all days ko:12월 27일 ms:27 Disember ja:12月27日 simple:December 27 th:27 ธันวาคม

November 15

November 15 is the 319th day of the year (320th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 46 days remaining.

Events

- 655 - Battle of Winwaed: Penda of Mercia defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.
- 1515 - Thomas Cardinal Wolsey invested as a Cardinal
- 1533 - Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, Peru.
- 1777 - American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.
- 1791 - The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.
- 1806 - Pike expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it was later named Pikes Peak).
- 1854 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is given the needed royal concession by Said.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burns Atlanta, Georgia and starts Sherman's March to the Sea.
- 1889 - Brazil is declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.
- 1920 - First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva.
- 1926 - The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations.
- 1939 - In Washington, DC, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
- 1941 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all homosexuals in Germany, with the exception of certain top Nazi officials.
- 1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal ends.
- 1943 - German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps." (see Porajmos)
- 1948 - Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeds William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada. King had the longest combined time (3 terms, 22 years in total) as Premier in Commonwealth of Nations history.
- 1956 - The first film starring Elvis Presley, Love Me Tender, opens.
- 1959 - Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas.
- 1960 - The Polaris missile is test launched.
- 1961 - Roger Maris is voted the American League MVP (baseball)
- 1966 - Gemini program: Gemini 12 splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1967 - The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft, and is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.
- 1969 - Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
- 1969 - Vietnam War: In Washington, DC, 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war.
- 1970 the Soviet Lunokhod 1 moon rover lands on the moon
- 1971 - Intel releases world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.
- 1976 - René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favour of independence.
- 1978 - A chartered DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.
- 1979 - A package from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
- 1983 - Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is founded.
- 1985 - A research assistant is injured as a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.
- 1985 - The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
- 1987 - Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas DC-9-14 jetliner, crashes in a snowstorm at Denver, Colorado Stapleton International Airport, killing 28 occupants, while 54 survive the crash.
- 1988 - In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran is launched on her first and last space flight.
- 1988 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.
- 1989 - Sachin Tendulkar makes his Test cricket debut playing for India against Pakistan.
- 1990 - Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.
- 1990 - Producers acknowledge that Milli Vanilli, who won the 1990 "Best New Artist" Grammy Award, did not sing themselves on their album.
- 1996 - UN [[Resolution 1080]] authorises Canada to lead the [[multi national force in Zaire.
- 2000 - A chartered Antonov AN-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people
- 2001 - The Microsoft Xbox video game console launches in North America, along with the game Halo: Combat Evolved.
- 2002 - Hu Jintao becomes general secretary of the Communist Party of China.
- 2003 - The first day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings takes place, to be followed by additional bombings on November 20.
- 2004 - Destiny's Child releases their final album: Destiny Fulfilled.
- 2004 - New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey leaves office, three months after resigning due to a gay extra-marital affair. State Senator Richard Codey takes over as interim governor.

Births

- 1316 - King John I of France (d. 1316)
- 1397 - Pope Nicholas V (d. 1455)
- 1498 - Eleonore of Austria, Queen of Portugal and France (d. 1558)
- 1511 - Johannes Secundus, Dutch poet (d. 1536)
- 1556 - Jacques-Davy Duperron, French cardinal (d. 1618)
- 1559 - Archduke Albert of Austria, Governor of the Low Countries (d. 1621)
- 1607 - Madeleine de Scudéry, French writer (d. 1701)
- 1660 - Hermann von der Hardt, German historian (d. 1746)
- 1661 - Christoph von Graffenried, Swiss settler in Americas (d. 1743)
- 1692 - Eusebius Amort, German Catholic theologian (d. 1775)
- 1708 - William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, English politician (d. 1778)
- 1731 - William Cowper, English poet (d. 1800)
- 1738 - William Herschel, German-born astronomer (d. 1822)
- 1741 - Johann Kaspar Lavater, German philosopher (d. 1801)
- 1784 - Jerome Bonaparte, French King of Westphalia (d. 1860)
- 1859 - Christopher Hornsrud, Prime Minister of Norway (d.1960)
- 1862 - Gerhart Hauptmann, German dramatist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1946)
- 1874 - August Krogh, Danish zoophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1949)
- 1879 - Lewis Stone, American actor (d. 1953)
- 1881 - Franklin Pierce Adams, American newspaper columnist (d. 1960)
- 1882 - Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1965)
- 1886 - René Guénon, French-Egyptian author (d. 1951)
- 1887 - Marianne Moore, American poet (d. 1972)
- 1887 - Georgia O'Keeffe, American painter (d. 1986)
- 1889 - King Manuel II of Portugal (d. 1932)
- 1890 - Richmal Crompton, British author (d. 1969)
- 1891 - Averell Harriman, American businessman and politician (d. 1986)
- 1891 - Erwin Rommel, German field marshal (d. 1944)
- 1895 - Antoni Słonimski, Polish writer (d. 1976)
- 1897 - Aneurin Bevan, British politician (d. 1960)
- 1897 - Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer (d. 1988)
- 1899 - Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan (d. 1969)
- 1903 - Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer (d. 1974)
- 1905 - Mantovani, Italian-born composer, musician, and arranger (d. 1980)
- 1906 - Curtis LeMay, U.S. Air Force general (d. 1990)
- 1907 - Claus von Stauffenberg, German army colonel who plotted to assassinate Hitler (d. 1944)
- 1913 - Arthur Haulot, Belgian journalist and resistance fighter (d. 2005)
- 1919 - Judge Joseph Wapner
- 1925 - Howard Baker, U.S. Senator from Tennessee and White House Chief of Staff
- 1925 - Yuli Daniel, Russian writer (d. 1988)
- 1929 - Ed Asner, American actor
- 1930 - J. G. Ballard, British author
- 1931 - Pascal Lissouba, Republic of the Congo politician
- 1931 - Mwai Kibaki Kenya's third president
- 1932 - Petula Clark, English singer
- 1932 - Clyde McPhatter, American singer (d. 1972)
- 1936 - Wolf Biermann, German writer
- 1937 - Little Willie John, American singer (d. 1968)
- 1937 - Yaphet Kotto, American actor
- 1940 - Sam Waterston, American actor
- 1942 - Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born pianist and conductor
- 1945 - Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Norwegian singer (ABBA)
- 1947 - Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
- 1951 - Beverly D'Angelo, American actress
- 1952 - Randy Savage, American professional wrestler
- 1954 - Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of Poland
- 1956 - Michael Hampton, American guitarist (Funkadelic)
- 1957 - Kevin Eubanks, American jazz guitarist
- 1963 - Benny Elias, Australian rugby player
- 1965 - Nigel Bond, English snooker player
- 1968 - Ol' Dirty Bastard, American rapper (d. 2004)
- 1969 - Shane Mack, American politician
- 1970 - Patrick Mboma, Cameroonian footballer
- 1979 - Josemi, Spanish footballer
- 1986 - Sania Mirza, Indian tennis player
- 1988 - Zena Grey, American actress

Deaths

- 655 - Penda, King of Mercia
- 1028 - Constantine VIII Byzantine Emperor (b. 960)
- 1136 - Margrave Leopold III of Austria (b. 1073)
- 1280 - Albertus Magnus, German theologian
- 1463 - Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, Prince of Taranto and Constable of Naples
- 1579 - Ferenc Dávid, Hungarian religious reformer (b. 1510)
- 1628 - Roque Gonzales, Paraguayan missonary (b. 1576)
- 1630 - Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician (b. 1571)
- 1670 - Comenius, Czech writer (b. 1592)
- 1691 - Aelbert Cuyp, Dutch painter (b. 1620)
- 1706 - Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (b. 1683)
- 1712 - James Douglas, 4th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish nationalist (b. 1658)
- 1712 - Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, English politician (b. 1675)
- 1787 - Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (b. 1714)
- 1794 - John Witherspoon, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1723)
- 1795 - Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo, French painter (b. 1719)
- 1853 - Queen Maria II of Portugal (b. 1819)
- 1908 - Empress Dowager Cixi, Chinese ruler (b. 1835)
- 1910 - Wilhelm Raabe, German writer (b. 1831)
- 1916 - Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1846)
- 1917 - Émile Durkheim, French sociologist (b. 1858)
- 1919 - Alfred Werner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1866)
- 1954 - Lionel Barrymore, American actor (b. 1878)
- 1958 - Tyrone Power, American actor (b. 1914)
- 1959 - Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1869)
- 1961 - Elsie Ferguson, American actress (b.1883)
- 1963 - Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (b. 1988)
- 1965 - Dawn Powell, American poet (b. 1896)
- 1967 - Michael J. Adams, American test pilot (b. 1930)
- 1969 - Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan (b. 1899)
- 1971 - Rudolf Abel, Soviet spy (b. 1903)
- 1971 - Edie Sedgwick, American actress and model (b. 1943)
- 1978 - Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (b. 1901)
- 1983 - John Le Mesurier, British actor (b. 1912)
- 1990 - Alydar, American racehorse (b. 1975)
- 1996 - Alger Hiss, American government official and spy (b. 1904)
- 1998 - Stokely Carmichael, American civil rights activist (b. 1941)
- 2002 - Eddie Bracken, American actor (b. 1915)
- 2002 - Myra Hindley, English murderer (b. 1942)
- 2003 - Ray Lewis, Canadian athlete (b. 1910)
- 2003 - Dorothy Loudon, American actress (b. 1933)
- 2003 - Laurence Tisch, American businessman (b. 1923)
- 2004 - Elmer L. Andersen, Governor of Minnesota (b. 1909)
- 2004 - John Morgan, Canadian comedian (b. 1930)
- 2005 - Dr. Adrian Rogers, American Southern Baptist Minister and leader (b. 1931)

Holidays and observances

- Roman festivals - Festival in honor of Feronia (others say 13 November)
- R.C. Saints - Albert the Great
- Eastern Orthodoxy - Feast of Saint Philip the Apostle and the beginning of Winter Lent; also see November 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Austria - Saint Leopold's day -- no school in Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria
- Brazil - Republic Proclamation Day (1889)
- Palestine - Independence Day (declared 1988) ----
- Norway - The official skolebrød-day on Sunnland skole
- USA - America Recycles Day [http://www.americarecyclesday.org/]

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/15 BBC: On This Day] ---- November 14 - November 16 - October 15 - December 15 -- listing of all days ko:11월 15일 ms:15 November ja:11月15日 simple:November 15 th:15 พฤศจิกายน

1630

Events

- February 22 - Native American Quadequine introduces Popcorn to English colonists.
- June 6 - Swedish warships depart from Stockholm to Germany.
- June 26 - July 6 - Swedish troops under Gustavus Adolphus land in Pomerania, Germany to aid Protestants.
- July 6 - Success, last ship of the Winthrop Fleet, lands safely at Salem harbor, MBC.
- July 8 - The MBC celebrates its first Thanksgiving Day.
- September 17 - The city of Boston, Massachusetts is founded.
- September 24 - First ship of de Sauce's emigrants arrive at Southampton Hundred on the James River (the colony will not prosper; believed to have dispersed later).
- November 10-11 – Day of Dupes – Marie de Medicis' unsuccessful attempt to oust Richelieu.
- Johann Heinrich Alsted's Encyclopaedia is published.
- The first account of the Childes Tomb story is published.
- Paramaribo, Suriname is first settled by the British.
- Puritan pamphleteer Dr. Alexander Leighton publishes "Zion's Plea Against Prelacy: An Appeal to Parliament", an attack on Anglican bishops, in London. He was sentenced by Archbishop William Laud's High Commission Court to public whipping, branding,and having his ears cut off.

Births

- January 11 - John Rogers, American President of Harvard (d. 1684)
- February 19 - Shivaji, founder of the Maratha Empire (d. 1680)
- April 28 - Charles Cotton, English poet (d. 1687)
- May 29 - King Charles II of England Scotland, and Ireland (d. 1685)
- August 1 - Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, English statesman (d. 1673)
- October 14 - Sophia of Hanover, heir to the throne of Great Britain (d. 1714)
- October - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1694)
- November 24 - Etienne Baluze, French scholar (d. 1718)
- November 27 - Sigismund Francis of Austria, regent of Tyrol and Further Austria (d. 1665) See also :Category:1630 births.

Deaths

- January 26 - Henry Briggs, English mathematician (b. 1556)
- February 12 - Fynes Moryson, English traveler and writer (b. 1566)
- February 26 - William Brade, English composer (b. 1560)
- April 29 - Agrippa d'Aubigné, French poet and soldier (b. 1552)
- July 16 - Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (b. 1562)
- September 17 - Thomas Lake, English statesman (b. 1567)
- September 18 - Melchior Klesl, Austrian cardinal and statesman (b. 1552)
- September 20 - Claudio Saracini, Italian composer (b. 1586)
- September 25 - Ambrosio Spinola, marqués de los Balbases, Spanish general (b. 1569)
- November 15 - Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (b. 1571)
- November 19 - Johann Schein, German composer (b. 1586) See also :Category:1630 deaths. Category:1630 ko:1630년

Scientific revolution

:This article is about the period in history, not the process of scientific progress via revolution, proposed by Thomas Kuhn and discussed at paradigm shift In the history of science, the scientific revolution was the period that roughly began with the discoveries of Kepler, Galileo, and others at the dawn of the 17th century, and ended with the publication of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by Isaac Newton. These boundaries are controversial, with some claiming that the proper start of the scientific revolution was the publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, while others wish to extend it into the 18th century. Nevertheless, the basic themes of the revolution are readily recognised. The seventeenth century was a period of major scientific change. But at that time the word "science" did not have its current meaning, and "scientist" had not been coined; Newton was called a natural philosopher. Not only were there major theoretical and experimental developments, but even more importantly, the way in which scientists worked was radically changed. At the beginning of the century, science was highly Aristotelian; at its end, science was mathematical, mechanical, and empirical.

Emergence of the revolution

There is much scholarly debate as to the nature, emergence, and even the existence of the scientific revolution. This debate began with the work of Alexandre Koyré when he coined the term and definition of 'The Scientific Revolution' in 1939, which later influenced the work of traditional historians A. Rupert Hall and J.D. Bernal and subsequent historiography on the subject (Stevin Shapin, The Scientific Revolution, 1996). To some extent, this arises from different conceptions of what the revolution was; some of the rancor and cross-purposes in such debates may arise from lack of recognition of these fundamental differences. Since the time of Voltaire, many observers have considered that a revolutionary change in thought, called in recent times a scientific revolution, took place around the year 1600; that is, that there were dramatic and historically rapid changes in the ways in which scholars thought about the physical world and studied it. Science, as it is treated in this account, is essentially understood and practiced in the modern world; with various "other narratives" or alternate ways of knowing omitted. A striking case for this point of view is presented by the historian of science Howard Margolis as part of a larger (and controversial) theory of the causes of the revolution (Margolis, 2002). It may be summarized in the following lists of significant advances in science:

Early and Medieval Views of Science

2nd century
- Galen's work in anatomy
- Ptolemy's calculations of planetary motion. (This and Galen's anatomy, though largely superseded by later work, are none the less important contributions to science.) Ptolemy believed that the earth was the center of the universe.
- Aristotle's belief that God placed earth at the center of the universe with a hierarchical order to the Universe. The universe, according to Aristotle consisted of concentric spheres. All bodies naturally moved toward the center and moved toward rest, therefore a God must exist in order to move things into motion, which was later revoked by Newton's theories.
- Dante's view of the four elements: fire, earch, water, and air, which made up earth and purgatory.
- Galen believed that there were four bodily humors--blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This idea was later revoked by Andreas Vesalius. Galen believed that sickness was caused by an inbalance of any of the humors.

New Scientific Thought

About 1600, Ideas and People who emerged:
- Uniform acceleration of falling bodies (Galileo)
- Inertia and inertial frames of reference
- The Earth as a magnet
- Theory of lenses
- Kepler's laws of planetary motion (Kepler), coupled with Copernicus' publication of Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.
- Telescopic discoveries: moons of Jupiter, lunar mountains, phases of Venus, etc. (Galileo)
- Laws of hydrostatics
- Constant period of the pendulum (Newton)
- Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) published On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543), which discredited Galen's views. He found that the circulation of blood resolved from pumping of the heart. He also assembled the first human skeleton from cutting open cadavers.
- William Harvey (1578-1657) solved how blood circulates via disections.
- Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler searched for understanding of the stars. Although the Danish Brahe rejected the Copernican belief that the earth revolved around the sun, his assistant Kepler, a German, proved that Copernicus' theory had validity. He established, using trigonometry and geometric algebra, laws of planetary motion.
- William Gilbert (1544-1603), an English scientist, published a book describing the magnet in 1600.
- Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), whose greatest scientific experiment amounted to stuffing snow into a dead chicken, nevertheless penned inductive reasoning, proceeding from observation and experimentation. This contrasted with Rene Descartes who took a more theoretical approach to science.
- Galileo was tried for his belief of the Copernican system because he lived in Italy, a Catholic state at the height of an inquisition that prosecuted heresy. Because the pope was a personal friend of Galileo's, he fortunately escaped death and instead lived the rest of his life in house arrest if he chose to renounce his support for Copernicus's views, which he did. He is perhaps best known for his law of falling bodies, which he proved not only theoretically through a thought experiment, but also through experimentation, uniting both the inductive observational part of science with the theoretical and logical branch.
- René Descartes(1596-1650) and Isaac Newton(1642-1727): Descartes pioneered Deductive reasoning, publishing in 1637 Discourse on Method. He is widely known for issuing the statement, "I think, therefore I am" (Cogito, ergo sum). Newtonian Synthesis, on the other hand is built upon Kepler, Galileo and Descartes--Newton believed that scientific theory should be coupled with rigid experimentation. Newton postulated the theory of Universal Gravitation. Newton became a wealthy hero--knighted by the king and elected to Parliament in 1689 representing Cambridge University. However, Newton did clash with Goetfried Leibniz on various issues, including who first invented Calculus and on the question of whether or not God intervened in everyday affairs. It is not easy to find work of comparable importance, apart from that of Copernicus, to fill out the intervening period. Margolis reports that the most commonly suggested candidate for filling the gap is Alhazen's theory of intromission; that is, that vision is by means of light emitted from bodies, not rays from the eye. Giving this important work its full value (regardless of its antecedents in Aristotle), it still does not go far to fill fourteen centuries, and the other candidates are few:

[One may reasonably judge that] Gilbert and Stevin each discovered more that has proved important for modern science than the combination of everyone who lived during the fourteen centuries between them and Ptolemy. But for Kepler and Galileo a claim this bold is not merely arguable, but beyond real dispute. If you measure what either Kepler or Galileo discovered against everything discovered in the previous 1400 years, it is no contest. (Margolis, 2002; p. 139)

In this interpretation these extraordinary changes, beginning with Copernicus and extending to the early 17th century, are the raw data on which are built the theoretical studies of how and why the revolution took place, and what changes in society and thought resulted from it. Other accounts of what constitutes the revolution exist and lead to quite different studies.

Theoretical developments

In 1543 Copernicus' work on the heliocentric model of the solar system was published, in which he tried to prove that the sun was the centre of the universe. Ironically, this was at the behest of the Catholic Church as part of the Catholic Reformation efforts for a means of creating a more accurate calendar for its activities. For almost two millennia, the geocentric model had been accepted by all but a few astronomers. The idea that the earth moved around the sun, as advocated by Copernicus, was to most of his contemporaries preposterous. It contradicted not only the virtually unquestioned Aristotelian philosophy, but also common sense. For suppose the earth turns about its own axis. Then, surely, if we were to drop a stone from a high tower, the earth would rotate beneath it while it fell, thus causing the stone to land some space away from the tower's bottom. This effect is not observed. It is no wonder, then, that although some astronomers used the Copernican system to calculate the movement of the planets, only a handful actually accepted it as true theory. It took the efforts of two men, Johannes Kepler and Galileo, to give it credibility. Kepler was a brilliant astronomer who, using the very accurate observations of Tycho Brahe, realised that the planets move around the sun not in circular orbits, but in elliptical ones. Together with his other laws of planetary motion, this allowed him to create a model of the solar system that was a huge improvement over Copernicus' original system. Galileo's main contributions to the acceptance of the heliocentric system were his mechanics and the observations he made with his telescope, as well as his detailed presentation of the case for the system (which led to his condemnation by the Inquisition). Using an early theory of inertia, Galileo could explain why rocks dropped from a tower fall straight down even if the earth rotates. His observations of the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the spots on the sun, and mountains on the moon all helped to discredit the Aristotelian philosophy and the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. Through their combined discoveries, the heliocentric system gained more and more support, and at the end of the 17th century it was generally accepted by astronomers. Both Kepler's laws of planetary motion and Galileo's mechanics culminated in the work of Isaac Newton. His laws of motion were to be the solid foundation of mechanics; his law of universal gravitation combined terrestrial and celestial mechanics into one great system that seemed to be able to describe the whole world in mathematical formulae. Not only astronomy and mechanics were greatly changed. Optics, for instance, was revolutionised by people like Robert Hooke, Christiaan Huygens and, once again, Isaac Newton, who developed mathematical theories of light as either waves (Huygens) or particles (Newton). Similar developments could be seen in chemistry, biology and other sciences, although their full development into modern science was delayed for a century or more.

Experimental developments

The development of telescopes in Holland and subsequent improvements by Galileo and others greatly expanded the accuracy and range of celestial observations. The emerging technology of the microscope brought the world of the very small within reach of the human observer, although it would take an additional two centuries before the instrument was perfected. Another notable invention was the air-pump, extensively used by Robert Boyle and others.

Methodological developments

The most important changes were in the way that science was done. Three main developments can be identified as mathematisation, mechanisation, and empiricism.

Mechanisation

Aristotle recognised four kinds of causes, of which the most important was the "final cause". The final cause was the aim or goal of something. Thus, the final cause of rain was to let plants grow. Until the scientific revolution, it was very natural to see such goals in nature. The world was inhabited by angels and demons, spirits and souls, occult powers and mystical principles. Scientists spoke about the 'soul of a magnet' as easily as they spoke about its velocity. The rise of the so-called "mechanical philosophy" put a stop to this. The mechanists, of whom the most important one was René Descartes, rejected all goals, emotion and intelligence in nature. In this modern view, the world consisted of matter moving in accordance with the laws of physics. Where nature had previously been imagined to be like a living entity, the scientific revolution viewed nature as following natural, physical laws.

Empiricism

"Look at the world, but don't experiment!"—such was the view of the natural philosophers before the scientific revolution. Nature, it was thought, should be looked at as it worked on its own. If one did an experiment, one was putting nature in "unnatural" circumstances, and hence the results of an experiment would not agree with the true way nature worked. Under the influence of philosophers like Francis Bacon, an empirical tradition was developed in the 17th century. The Aristotelian belief of natural and artificial circumstances was abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. Bacon's 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, of course, many scientists (and philosophers) believed that a healthy mix of both was needed -- the willingness to question assumptions, yet also interpret observations assumed to have some degree of validity. At the end of the scientific revolution the organic, quantitative world of book-reading philosophers had been changed into a mechanical, mathematical world to be known through experimental research. Though it is certainly not true that Newtonian science was like modern science in all respects, it closely resembled ours in many ways -- much more so than the Aristotelian science of a century earlier.

Literary criticisms

A recent trend in literary theory, "cultural materialism" questions whether there was a scientific revolution, or, if a revolution occurred, it questions whether it was important. Literary critics who hold this point of view have a special (and some would claim, mistaken), definition of what the term "revolution" means. These literary critics hold that if a scientific revolution did not occur instantaneously, and without historical precedent, then by definition it cannot be a revolution, and can only be an evolution. If the scientific revolution was only an evolution, then it would have little or no intelligibility as a single event, but nonetheless, like all evolutionary processes, "the scientific evolution" invites serious consideration as a process or group of processes, in order to understand if and how language, culture and society have changed and are changing as a result. The scientific revolution, as a change in theoretical outlook, is normally identified as a four step process (this is not true of 'scientific practice' which is much less clearly definable historically). First, Galileo is seen as the father of "theoretical experimentalism", in that he legitimised observation, as opposed to pure reason, as a route to authentic knowledge, and presented the observations (for instance, in his falling body experiments) with an analysis that had the rigour of Euclidean proof. Second (but not subsequent to, or, in direct conjunction with Galileo) Francis Bacon projects (what we would now think of as) the Galilean "experimental truth revealing process" onto the entire map of the natural universe, setting forth an agenda for every natural phenomenon then known, to be subjected to experimental scrutiny. Third, Robert Boyle sets about regularising Galileo's experimental work as characterised by his reports of "falling bodies experiments" into a practical method for ensuring that the observational process accumulates a body of knowledge which is public, thorough and "self-correcting" by the practice of publication, replication and review of scientific experiments. Fourth, Newton produces the first widely read works which purport to address the most significant fundamental natural processes with "Boylean rigour". Although cultural materialism doesn't necessarily dismiss the main thrust of these claims, it does not accept that they fully account for the changes which are attributed to them, or that they reflect the nature or even the points in time when the relevant changes occurred. If Boyle's "public science" model coexisted with "pre-scientific" disciplines, then the "revolution" was "romanticised" by their biographers, who wished to paint a picture of the 'new wisdom' being adopted at the same time as the abandonment of the "wicked, secretive and pagan" practices of the pre-scientific "mystics".

References

- Howard Margolis: It Started with Copernicus. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002 ISBN 0-07-138507-X
- Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN 0-266-75021-3
- This book suggests we re-examine and re-evaluate the mythology of 'The Scientific Revolution' to see if it was a cohesive or even real a historical event. The problem of the late 16th century to early 17th century was that while new methodologies were developed and used by a few, basic ideas remained relatively consistent - notably Newton reintroducing occult (hidden) forces (ie gravity) despite the want of a visibly mechanistic world system - while natural philosophers argued against others and amongst themselves over their legitimacy by using propagandized definitions of 'ancient' and 'modern'.

Science

- Barry Gower: Scientific Method. London: Routledge, 1997 ISBN 0-415-12281-3
- This book is concerned with the sequence of changes from which the modern understanding of science has developed and thus gives a useful grounding in the philosophical and historical basis of the scientific revolution

History

- I. Bernard Cohen: Revolution in Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985 ISBN 0-674-76777-2
- Bertrand Russell: The Scientific Outlook. London: Allen & Unwin, 1931
- A highly influential work. The first chapter 'Examples of the scientific method' paints a history of the key developments in the scientific revolution, from the perspective of a devotee of 'scientific thinking'.

Literary criticism

- Richard S. Westfall: Never at Rest: A biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980 ISBN 0-521-23143-4
- A biography of Newton which begins the process of identifying the interplay between the 'theopolitical' issues and science which formed the basis of the 'actions and equal and opposite reactions' between the ideologies at the heart of both the mythologies and the realities of the scientific revolution.
- Robert Markley: Fallen Languages: Crises of representation in Newtonian England, 1660-1740. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993 ISBN 0-8014-2586-3
- This book put