Block 1 The scientist Nicolaus Copernicus studied astronomy and drew the

conclusion that the earth, stars, and other planets revolved around the sun – the
“heliocentric” theory. On his deathbed, his book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Bodies, was published. Other scientists after Copernicus built on his work. For
example, Johannes Kepler determined that mathematical laws governed the planets’
orbits. One of these laws showed that the planets revolve around the sun in an elliptical
orbit.

Block 2 The new way of thinking that Copernicus, Galileo and others began
developed into an actual approach, a way of doing things, concerning science. The
Scientific Method is a logical procedure for testing ideas. It basically goes as follows:

Determine a problem or question that has come from an observation

Form a hypothesis – an unproven idea
Test the hypothesis with experiments and collect data
Analyze the data to reach a conclusion
The conclusion will either confirm or deny the original hypothesis.

Block 3 This method is really the combination of two philosopher’s ideas – Francis
Bacon and Rene Descartes. Bacon, an Englishman, was a politician but had an interest
in science. He believed that people’s lives could be improved through science. Bacon
urged scientists to stop relying on what others had previously said and instead
experiment on their own and draw their own conclusions.
Descartes was from France and also interested in science. But he was a mathematician
and while agreeing that scientists needed to reject old ideas, Descartes relied on math
and logic. He believed that everything should be doubted until it could be proved by
reason. His starting point was himself – the only thing that he knew for sure existed – “I
think, therefore I am.”
The scientific method is based on both these ideas – observation and experimentation
combined with scientific laws that can be expressed mathematically.
Block 4 It will be left to Isaac Newton to bring together all of the earlier works of
Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. Newton’s book “The Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy” brought together astronomy and physics and laid down his own
“three laws of motion” using math laws to explain motion and mechanics. The key
feature was the law of universal gravitation – every object in the universe attracts every
other object.

Block 5 Using the scientific method, scientists developed new tools and instruments.
A microscope that could see bacteria and red blood cells was developed by Anton van
Leeuwenhoek around the 1670s.
A barometer to predict weather was invented. ~1640
Gabriel Fahrenheit made the first mercury thermometer. 1714.
In medicine, doctors began to examine the human body, usually dead criminals, with
autopsies.
Robert Boyle is known as the “father of modern chemistry.” He proposed a law to
explain how volume, temperature, and grass pressure affect each other. It is known as
Boyle’s Law.