Page 375 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1676 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Further Reading the ending with the English mathematician and physicist
Bud, R., & Warner, D. J. (Eds.). (1998). Instruments of science: An his- Isaac Newton (1642–1727) and his book Philosophiae
torical encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing.
Chapman,A. (1984).Tycho Brahe in China: The Jesuit mission to Peking Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Princi-
and the iconography of European instrument-making processes. ples of Natural Philosophy).
Annals of Science, 41, 417–444. Before Copernicus and Newton people still saw the
Clerk Maxwell, J. (1876). General considerations concerning scientific
apparatus. The Kensington Museum Handbook (pp. 1–21). London: world through the eyes of the Greek philosopher Aris-
Chapman and Hall. totle (384–322 BCE). He thought that the world is com-
Harley, J. B. (2001). The new nature of maps: Essays in the history of car- posed of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. The
tography. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
King, D.A. (1987). Islamic astronomical instruments. London: Variorum Aristotelian world was a hierarchically structured uni-
Reprints. verse where a clear distinction existed between the
Needham, J., Gwei-Djen, L., Combridge, J. H., & Major, J. S. (1986). The
hall of heavenly records: Korean astronomical instruments and clocks destructible space under the moon and eternal celestial
1380–1780. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. space. Because to minds of the time Aristotelian phi-
Pyenson, L., & Sheets-Pyenson, S. (1999). Servants of nature: A history losophy could answer the most important cosmological
of scientific institutions, enterprises and sensibilities. London:
HarperCollins. (relating to the natural order of the universe) and astro-
Selin, H. (Ed.). (1997). Encyclopedia of the history of science, technology nomical questions, people found no compelling reason
and medicine in non-Western cultures. Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Turner,A. (1987). Early scientific instruments: Europe 1400–1800. Lon- to dispute him for centuries. His natural philosophy had
don: Sotheby’s. been accepted—with slight modifications—in the West-
Turner, G. P. E. (1998). Scientific instruments, 1500–1900: An intro- ern world by both intellectuals and the “working” class,
duction. London: Philip Wilson.
Van Helden, A., & Hankins, T. L. (Eds.). (1994). Instruments. Chicago: by both pagans and Christians, for almost two thou-
Osiris. sand years.
Warner, D. (1990).What is a scientific instrument, when did it become
one, and why? British Journal for the History of Science, 23, 83–93. Nevertheless, as Western thought gradually began to
change during the Scientific Revolution,some scientists—
a handful at first, fistfuls after a while— published works
that challenged Aristotelian philosophy.According to the
French historian Alexandre Koyre (1892–1964), two
Scientific fundamental changes occurred during the Scientific Rev-

olution:The previous view of the universe was destroyed,
Revolution and space was geometricized. “[The founders of modern
science] had to destroy one world and to replace it by
lthough historians still debate exactly when it another.They had to reshape the framework of our intel-
Aoccurred, the Scientific Revolution was a period of lect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve
monumental change in thought, belief, and cultural and a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, a
institutional organization that swept Europe between new concept of science” (Koyre 1968, 20–21).
roughly 1550 and 1700. During those 150 years West- The world during the Scientific Revolution became an
ern science advanced more than it had during the previ- open and infinite universe without any hierarchy. It could
ous fourteen hundred years—since the Greek physician be described using the geometry of the Greek Euclid.
Galen’s work in anatomy and the Greek astronomer Celestial phenomena and earthly phenomena were now
Ptolemy’s work in planetary motion. described by the same physical laws.
More personally, historians generally date the begin- Furthermore, scientists were not satisfied with just
ning of the Scientific Revolution with the Polish describing natural phenomena but went further by study-
astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and his ing the secrets of nature to explain how nature works.As
book De Revolutionibus (On the Revolutions) and date they worked toward this goal they needed more power-