ch. 22 lesson 1

Newton

Isaac Newton was an English mathematician. Gravity is the pull of the Earth or other bodies in space on objects that are on or near them.

Bacon

Bacon influenced scientific thought. He believed that unproven ideas from earlier generations should be put aside. Bacon believed that to find the truth, you had to first find and examine the facts.

Descartes

Descartes claimed that mathematics is the source of scientific truth. In mathematics, he said, the answers are always true. His reasoning was that mathematics begins with simple principles. It then uses logic, or reason, to move to more complex truths.

element

Elements are basic materials that cannot be broken down into simpler parts.

Kepler

German astronomer named Johannes Kepler made more advances. He used mathematics to support Copernicus's theory that the planets revolve around the sun. His findings also made corrections to the theory. Kepler added the idea that the planets move in oval paths called ellipses instead of the circular paths in Copernicus's theory.

rationalism

This is the belief that reason is the main source of knowledge.

heliocentric

or sun-centered, theory of the universe. Copernicus believed that the sun was the center of the universe. Earth and the other planets followed a circular path around the sun.

galileo

An Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei, He believed that conducting experiments was the correct way to achieve new scientific knowledge. His studies caused him to disagree with some long-held ideas. For example, Aristotle had thought that heavy objects fall to the ground faster than objects that weigh less. Galileo's experiments proved that was not correct. Objects fall at the same speed no matter what they weigh.

scientific method

This method is an orderly way of collecting and analyzing evidence. Its basic principles are still used in scientific research today.First, scientists observe facts. Then, they try to find a hypothesis or an explanation of the facts. Scientists conduct experiments to test the hypothesis. These tests are done under all types of conditions. Repeated experiments may show that the hypothesis is true. Then it is considered a scientific law.

Scientific Revolution

This revolution changed how Europeans understood science and how they searched for knowledge. The Scientific Revolution first affected astronomy, the science that studies the planets and stars of the universe. New discoveries in this field began to change European thinking about the universe. They challenged the traditional idea that God had made the Earth as the center of the universe.