The years spanning from the death of Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543 to the death of Isaac Newton in 1727 were a densely packed period of new scientific discoveries in Europe. Most notably, the heliocentric model of the solar system became more widely accepted, the concept of gravity was discovered and mathematically described, and science took its place in the western world as an entity entirely independent of philosophy. Many ideas and discoveries during this time period challenged the previously held scientific consensus and propelled the field of science into one with new paradigms. Because of this, the time period represented a scientific revolution in both the fields of astronomy and mechanics/dynamics.

    	To understand history, it is important to identify periods of time in which peoples’ way of thinking is drastically different; usually there are events or periods of time that catalyze these dramatic changes in thought. Scientific revolutions are events or a series of events that transform the views of scientists and society about nature. Scientists pursue answers to questions about the natural world, develop models and theories to describe their observations, and continue to raise more and more questions. While research is conducted, there exists a foundational base of knowledge that scientists collectively generally agree on called consensus. As time and research progresses if the current models are inaccurate eventually too many questions are left unexplained and models begin to crack and fall apart. At this point, peoples’ current understanding of things must shift to come up with new explanations, and a scientific revolution occurs. A scientifically revolutionary idea must challenge current scientific consensus and can be powerful enough to drive change in societal, religious, and political institutions. It is possible for scientific revolutions to occur at different times for different civilizations, particularly if the civilizations are unable to or do not share discoveries with one another.

    	During the years between the death of Copernicus and the death of Newton, the discovery and acceptance of a heliocentric model of the solar system changed how people in Europe viewed the world. From the time of Ptolemy to Copernicus, Greek philosophers created complex models to “save the phenomena,” or predict the appearance of the positions of the planets, stars, and other celestial objects in the sky. Leading up to the death of Copernicus in 1543, cracks in the geocentric model of the universe had begun to reveal themselves; the geocentric model that had persisted for a 1000 years could not explain tides, why Mercury and Venus only stray a fixed amount from the Sun, or why the Moon rose at a different time each day. Shortly before his death, Copernicus published a work outlining a picture of the universe where Earth rotates on its axis once a day and orbits the sun once a year. Copernicus’s heliocentric model could account for many inconsistencies that the geocentric one couldn’t explain. While Copernicus’s theory attracted some attention, it was so controversial at the time that it was proposed only as a calculating tool and not as representative of reality. 

It wasn’t until Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter in 1610 that someone began insisting the heliocentric model of the universe was an accurate depiction of reality. Galileo was met with opposition, tried, and forced to recant. Around the same time, Johannes Kepler devised a heliocentric model where the planets moved around the sun in elliptical orbits. In 1687, Isaac Newton unified the theories of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler by showing that Kepler’s model would follow as a consequence of the law of gravity (Westfall 174). This time period in astronomy marked a point in scientific history where many questions were asked that a current model couldn’t explain, new models and explanations were developed and highly debated, and eventually a fundamental piece of knowledge that most people of the time had believed in was overturned. Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion are still used today. Additionally, the heliocentric model and the motion of the Earth completed by Newton explained questions about movement, motion, and change that had been asked by natural philosophers for a thousand years. Ideas about movement and dynamics advanced during this time period, evolving from the belief that matter is composed of five elements to mathematically describing the force of gravity. Aristotelian mechanics was based on the idea that every object had a “nature” and moved the way it did because it was trying to get back to its natural state. Aristotle established that objects do not move unless there is an internal (natural) force or an external force acting upon them. Galileo’s groundbreaking discoveries in mechanics/dynamics at the beginning of the seventeenth century overturned the Aristotelian physics that had dominated all science in Europe until his time. He developed foundations for new physics by introducing the principle of inertia, deriving the law of free-fall, and mathematically describing projectile motion. Following Galileo, Newton mathematically described how the force of gravity worked and published his three universal laws of motion, setting the stage for the discovery of classical mechanics. The science of mechanics/dynamics shifted dramatically during this time period, as by the end, the scientists of western Europe had unified the work of those before them and now had a model that answered questions that had perplexed natural philosophers for a millennium.

Not that many individuals were actually involved in the scientific revolution. The scientific arguments of the time took place within universities and were about texts most people couldn’t understand. However, scientific ideas that arose would greatly influence European way of thought. Galileo asserted the idea of independent confirmation as the mark of a scientist- all experimenters should be able confirm results themselves. Francis Bacon insisted the purpose of science was to improve the well-being of others through technological advances and should work for the public good (Klein, Sec. 6). Descartes pioneered the idea of systematic doubting, doubting oneself and always verifying with numbers because human reason and senses can be deceived. This new approach to science encouraged rational thought and practices that were based on logic. The Scientific Revolution marked the transition from a religious concept of knowledge towards a more secular worldview for European society. Currents of thought articulated during the Scientific Revolution, including the rise of empiricism, were not unique to the field of science; they contributed to cultural and political change and inspired intellectual movements in the Western world such as the Enlightenment period and even the French and American Revolutionary Wars (Godfrey-Smith 18).

    	Ultimately, due to the toppling of so many previously believed scientific theories, an apparent change in scientific methods, and the impact that developments in science had on society, it is appropriate to call the period of time from 1543 to 1727 in Europe a scientific revolution. Isaac Newton’s discoveries set the stage for modern science and continue to be influential in science today. Scientific advancements during this time period were not unique to physics; in the field of medicine, the role of the heart as a pump was discovered by William Harvey (Godfrey-Smith 18); in the field of chemistry, Robert Boyle discovered the relationship between gas pressure and volume (“Boyle’s Law”); in the field of microbiology, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered the existence of bacteria. These discoveries established a new paradigm for scientific consensus, setting the stage for new science and the next scientific revolution.