The Scientific Renaissance (or scientific revolution) is said to have occurred around the 17th Century. If there was a scientific revolution was it just a general progression of science or was it the sort that sees great upheaval of thought and substantial development of ideas? If it was of the former sort then it was hardly a scientific renaissance. Was there are scientific renaissance? It will be my aim to look at what occurred during the period and discover whether there indeed was a revolution.

The 14th Century saw the beginnings of the artistic Renaissance; this cultural movement saw much artistic development as well as recovery of ancient artistic works. In the centuries preceding the Renaissance (medieval times) from about the 4th Century onwards there was a gradual recovery of works of the Greek ancients in the Latin West in Italy after the foundation of Constantinople (Byzantine Empire) in the East. After the foundation of Constantinople the West suffered a sense of lost superior classical knowledge and deeply desired to regain this knowledge. The Byzantium’s did not have this same thirst for knowledge as they already held the original Greek texts and they merely preserved them rather than building upon the knowledge. It was only in the 5th Century that a Roman Aristocrat and government official called Boethus set out to recover Aristotle’s works and translate it from Greek into Latin. But his project remained unfinished as he was prosecuted and executed for treason.

It was in the 7th Century that major translation of ancient texts was undertaken. This occurred after the Arab armies brought much of Persian and East Roman Empires (Byzantine Empire) under their rule. Islamic culture encouraged the seeking of knowledge, this was often taken to mean only religious knowledge but many found that scientific knowledge too could be used to serve the religion. Constantinople did not fall to Islam till 1453 but it still served as an important source for its knowledge of Greek science. In Persia the Arabs made contacts with the Nestorians who were Christian subjects who had recently encountered Christian missionaries who also brought with them Greek culture. It was contact with the Nestorians that enabled the Arabs to start translation of Greek texts into Arabic. Baghdad became one of the main translation centres and works such Euclid’s Elements, Archimedes’ mathematical work and Ptolemy’s Almagest were all translated.

Often in years to come the original Greek texts were lost and only the Arab texts remained. The Arabs used the Greek scientific texts as the foundation for their own developments and although many of the scientists were Christian or Jewish living under Arab rule they often produced work in Arabic. Arab scientists aimed to develop the work of their Greek teachers and often added their own commentaries of criticisms to translated texts. There were some notable developments made in mathematics and alchemy however the ancients were still revered and maintained their positions as the authorities on scientific knowledge. Although Arab scientists themselves may not have done anything ultimately revolutionary they could be credited with sparking the interest of those in the Latin West when they read the translated texts.

In the 10th Century prior to the direct translations Greeks texts into Latin, it was often the Arab texts that were translated. The commentaries that had been added sparked scientific interest of who read them. Although many in the Latin West found the Arab commentaries invigorating the Ancient’s were still very much as the authorities in their relevant fields and there was reluctance to of against them. Therefore much of the progress that was made early on was in the fields which had not been so heavily documented previously. Schools also began to appear as well as universities although much of the new scientific developments were made outside of these academic centres. In 1453 Constantinople was conquered by the Turks and many Greeks fled into Italy and brought much of the ancients’ texts and manuscripts with them. This allowed those in the West to finally translate directly from the Greek into Latin and have a purer form of the ancients’ knowledge.

Towards the beginning of the next century (1500s) the printing press was invented by Johan Gutenberg in Mainz. The printing press allowed for rapid reproduction of texts as well as more accurate reproduction. This development also meant that scientific diagrams which had been continuously reproduced by hand and which often were inaccurate could now be more efficiently replicated. This meant that there were more copies of important scientific works available to a larger audience.

It is around this point in time that some historians claim the scientific revolution began. I will set out the main developments in science from the 16th to the 18th Century (the period the revolution is thought to cover) and see if what took place is worthy of being called a scientific renaissance. During the artistic Renaissance there was a shift in attitude from a god centred or supernatural viewpoint to a more human orientated view. Hence there was much religious reformation and the Catholic Church was slowly losing its standing as a major authority. This shift in attitude was an important factor in scientific development and realism.

The development of mathematics plays a key role in the events of the 17th Century. There were important advances made with the introduction of logarithms, the
invention of the slide rule, and the development of a decimal system. Growth in trade and colonization meant the need to travel increased and cartography progressed immensely under these circumstances. The need to improve navigation stimulated developments in mathematics and astronomy. Mathematics became an essential tool in many fields. With the increase in trade and travel there was also movement of food sources and plants. Plants which had not previously been found in certain countries were brought over by travellers. The new varieties of plants which were being introduced into different areas lead to advances in botany with a major classification of plant life being carried out and governments sponsoring the development of botanical gardens.

During the first half of the 17th Century development in mathematics was an important factor in the development of the empirical sciences. Francis bacon was also a key player in this development of empirical science as was Descartes. The work of Francis Bacon on Inductivism and the scientific method was extremely important as it moved people to actively engage with nature and manipulate it accordingly rather than passively observe it. Both Descartes and Bacon encouraged investigation without preconceived ideas and observing nature without any bias. This was important as it meant that one would have to investigate nature without thinking of it in an Aristotelian way or any other way. Science would now have to report what was “actually” happening rather than what one thought was happening. The development of the scientific method encouraged scientists to organize data efficiently. The organization allowed patterns to be detected and easier extraction of information and the derivation of laws. Francis Bacon is often seen as a “Hero” of the so called revolution as he was the man who provided insight into the scientific method initially and gave science a stronger predictive power through his theory of induction which moved away from Aristotelian deduction.

Descartes who had been educated by the Jesuits was a capable mathematician. His work on metaphysics had great influence on new mechanical philosophies. Although Descartes inquiry into what he knew was done without preconceived notions his work usually placed experimentation in a secondary role and much of his work was deductive in nature unlike Bacon’s method which was inductive. However Descartes work on mechanics was one of the most influential of its time and he is said to have unified mathematics and physics.

Around the same time as Descartes was working on his theory of colliding bodies a London Physician, William Harvey made a major breakthrough in medicine. Harvey announced that blood was pumped by the heart all around the body; his calculations had led him to the conclusion that the heart could not possibly generate all the blood that was present in the body. Harvey proved his theory to be correct but how the blood was transferred from arteries into the veins was a discovery made later in 1661 by Malphigi who, using a microscope, discovered capillaries. Harvey’s work undermined much of Galen’s physiology but it was not enough to stop Physicians using Galenic therapeutics as they continued to display practical success.

There were also very important developments made in astronomy during the 16th and 17th Century. Copernicus is often thought as an influential character in this progression of astronomy. Although Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus (published in 1543) was important and was one of the first fully developed heliocentric theories published it was not received well initially. It did not adhere to Aristotelian physics and nor did Copernicus provide an alternate physics. Mathematics played a key role in the development of the sciences of the 16th and 17th centuries and Copernicus’ original aim appeared to be to improve on the mathematical nature of Ptolemy’s work and create a more accurate system.

Copernicus’ theory was highly mathematical and his theory was often used as a calculation model but not accepted as a true account of how things were. It was with the aid of Kepler and Galileo that the Copernican theory gained any credibility. Kepler used the accurate observational data of Tycho Brahe to improve upon the Copernican system and ultimately he did. However, Kepler also identified some flaws in the Copernican theory and moved to correct them and make the theory more accurate. Kepler introduced the idea of elliptical orbits for the planets. Kepler’s Laws were made public in 1619.

Galileo was also a Copernican and he became a teacher of mathematics at the University of Padua where he argued against Aristotle’s view of astronomy and nature of the universe. Galileo is most well known for his development of the telescope. The principle of the telescope was originally invented by a Dutch man and on hearing about this Galileo set out to create his own “spyglass” (as it was known). By August 1609 Galileo has perfected an instrument which had a magnification of about eight or nine. It was at the end of 1609 that Galileo turned his telescope towards the night sky to make some remarkable discoveries. The invention of the telescope allowed some of the phenomena which Copernicus had envisaged to be observed. The combined contribution of Galileo and Kepler gave the Copernican theory much credibility and towards the middle of the 17th Century the Heliocentric theory of the universe became well accepted. The work of both Kepler and Galileo also laid the foundations for the work of Newton.

It is in the work of Newton and mainly his Principia Mathematica (published in 1687) that the scientific revolution is thought to culminate. Newton unified the work of many of his predecessors. Newton’s major interest lay in alchemy, theology, optics and mathematics. Newton’s greatest achievement was his mathematical system of the universe in which he explained the laws of gravity. Newton provided a physics which could explain how planets could remain in orbit around the sun and offered irrefutable mathematical proof that nature had order and meaning.

This brings us to the end of the outline of many of the major events and discoveries in the period referred to as the scientific revolution. Of course there is much else that went on but my aim here was to give a general overview of the time. By the end of the 17th Century there were many societies and academies present which devoted their time to science. The Royal Society was founded in England in 1660 and its main aim was that of research and gathering knowledge about nature.

If then a revolution did occur or was it just a case of extremely rapid accumulation of knowledge owing to the recovery of old texts and inventions such as the printing press which allowed for efficient distribution of knowledge?! Many believe there was a revolution because the developments made from the time of Copernicus to that of Newton were a step towards modern science and vaguely resembled what we consider science today. But even the inquiry and science which occurred in the time of the ancients could be considered a Revolution, even though it does not resemble modern science but because they did not have thousands of years of data to build upon and had to initiate things. The events which took place in the 17th Century occurred at a much faster pace and the development of the scientific method was extremely important in understanding the truth of nature and dismissing inaccurate theories such as that of Aristotle. Science gained a new identity and became far more mathematical and methodological. I believe there was a Scientific Renaissance/Revolution because there were so many advances in a number of fields. The science which developed was also one which vaguely resembles ours today and this means that it was moving towards the truth which is ultimately the goal of science. Had the Aristotelian tradition maintained its strength it would seem that many of the developments in astronomy and physics would have been easily dismissed.

Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach thought that the revolution of the 17th century was a demarcation point between wrong science and right science but this does not seem right. I do not think this is entirely the case as the science which preceded the revolution was also incorporated into that of the 17th Century only in an altered manner, much of the observational data which had been collected was still right it was the application of it which was not completely accurate. The scientific ideas of the 17th Century developed in a slightly different manner and under different circumstances. The ancients (or so it seems to me) no longer maintained their standing as the main authorities on things as they had previously and so scientific thought was able to progress without any boundaries or limitations.