The Scientific Revolution: Crash Course History of Science #12

Summary

This script explores the concept of the Scientific Revolution in Europe from the mid-1500s to 1700, questioning its existence and historiography. It delves into Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and highlights key figures like Nicolaus Copernicus, who challenged geocentric models with his heliocentric theory. The script discusses the gradual shift in scientific thought, the role of figures like Oresme and Galileo, and the complex nature of scientific progress, emphasizing that history, like science, is an evolving field of study.

Takeaways

• 📚 The script discusses the historiography of the Scientific Revolution, questioning if such a revolution truly occurred given the term 'science' was not used in the modern sense until the mid-1800s.
• 🌟 Thomas Kuhn's concept of scientific revolutions is highlighted, where a paradigm shift occurs when anomalies can no longer be explained by the current scientific model.
• 🔍 The script introduces Nicolaus Copernicus as a key figure associated with the start of the Scientific Revolution, but also mentions Nicole Oresme, who proposed heliocentrism over a century before Copernicus.
• 🌍 Oresme's rational approach to the possibility of a rotating Earth is noted, despite his conclusion that the Bible dictated a stationary Earth.
• 📊 Oresme's contributions to mathematics and physics, including the use of mathematical graphs and early concepts in the physics of falling objects, are acknowledged.
• 🤔 The script ponders why Oresme's theories did not spark a revolution, suggesting it may be due to a lack of push from him and a lack of interest from his contemporaries.
• 📖 The importance of Copernicus's 'De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium' (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is underscored, as it presented a heliocentric model of the universe.
• 🌐 Copernicus's model is described as revolutionary for its simplicity and elegance in explaining phenomena like retrograde motion, despite not being based on new observations.
• 🔧 The script points out that Copernicus's work was not perfect, with mathematical errors and adherence to some old cosmological ideas, such as crystalline spheres.
• 🏛 The relationship between the Scientific Revolution and religious beliefs is explored, noting that Copernicus was a religious man and that his work was dedicated to the Pope.
• 📚 The script concludes by emphasizing the ongoing nature of historical research, the subjectivity in choosing which stories to tell, and the idea that the Scientific Revolution might be better understood as multiple revolutions across different times and places.

Q & A

What is the time frame of the Scientific Revolution in Europe?

The Scientific Revolution in Europe is generally considered to have lasted from the mid-1500s to 1700.

What does the term 'historiography' refer to?

Historiography refers to how historians have told history differently over time, including the use of different narratives and frameworks to understand the past.

Why might the term 'Scientific Revolution' be considered a misnomer?

The term 'Scientific Revolution' might be a misnomer because the term 'science' in its contemporary sense was not used until the mid-1800s, and it obscures other possible interpretations of the period.

Who is Thomas Kuhn and what did he contribute to the understanding of scientific revolutions?

Thomas Kuhn was a philosopher, historian, and trained physicist who wrote 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' in 1962. He argued that sciences undergo revolutions when they accumulate enough data that cannot be explained by the current paradigm.

What is the concept of 'normal science' according to Kuhn?

Normal science, according to Kuhn, is the type of knowledge that professional scientists make most of the time, guided by a paradigm that includes a research program and a philosophy about what counts as valid knowledge.

Who was Nicole Oresme and what was his contribution to the idea of heliocentrism?

Nicole Oresme was a 14th-century French scholar who argued for heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, 166 years before Copernicus. He also contributed to mathematics and physics, including the use of mathematical graphs to describe motion.

What was Nicolaus Copernicus's main contribution to astronomy?

Nicolaus Copernicus's main contribution was proposing a heliocentric model of the universe, where the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun, in his work 'De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium' or 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'.

Why was Copernicus's heliocentric model initially met with skepticism and resistance?

Copernicus's heliocentric model was initially met with skepticism and resistance because it contradicted the widely accepted geocentric model of Ptolemy and the religious beliefs of the time, which considered heliocentrism as potentially blasphemous.

What is the significance of the preface added by Andreas Osiander to 'De revolutionibus'?

The preface added by Andreas Osiander to 'De revolutionibus' suggested that the book was a thought experiment and did not need to be true to be useful for understanding planetary motion, which softened the challenge to conventional cosmology.

How did the printing press contribute to the spread of scientific ideas during the Scientific Revolution?

The printing press, invented by Gutenberg, made books like 'De revolutionibus' more accessible, allowing a broader audience to read and engage with new scientific ideas, thus facilitating the spread of knowledge during the Scientific Revolution.

What is the debate surrounding the term 'Scientific Revolution' in relation to the changes in scientific thought from the 1500s to 1700?

The debate surrounding the term 'Scientific Revolution' is whether the changes in scientific thought during this period constitute a revolution due to the small number of people involved and the limited impact on daily life, or if the significant shifts in understanding and methodology, such as the work of Galileo and Newton, qualify it as a revolution.

Outlines

00:00

🔬 The Concept of Scientific Revolution and Its Historiography

This paragraph introduces the concept of the Scientific Revolution in Europe, which is traditionally dated from the mid-1500s to 1700. It questions the term 'science' and its usage in the 1800s, raising doubt about the actual occurrence of such a revolution. The discussion then shifts to Thomas Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions', where he defines the paradigm shift in sciences. Kuhn's model of 'normal science', 'anomalies', and the eventual 'scientific revolution' is explained. The paragraph also touches on the historiography of science, highlighting Nicolaus Copernicus as a pivotal figure in the Scientific Revolution, but also introduces Nicole Oresme, who proposed heliocentrism before Copernicus. Oresme's contributions to math and physics are noted, including his critique of astrology and his early work on the physics of falling objects.

05:01

📚 Nicolaus Copernicus and the Heliocentric Model

This section delves into the life and work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who is often credited with starting the Scientific Revolution. It discusses his background, education, and his aversion to the 'astronomical monster' of retrograde motion. Copernicus's heliocentric model, which places the sun at the center of the universe, is outlined, along with his struggles with publishing his ideas due to fear of ridicule. The paragraph describes the publication of 'De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium' (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and the legend of Copernicus's death upon seeing the published work. It also explores the significance of Copernicus's work in the context of the Scientific Revolution, noting that his model was not based on new observations but rather on a more pleasing and logical fit to the mind, addressing issues like retrograde motion and the order of the planets.

10:02

🌟 The Impact and Legacy of the Scientific Revolution

The final paragraph reflects on the nature of the Scientific Revolution, discussing its origins, impact, and the historiographical choices made in defining it. It notes that by 1700, European science had largely moved away from Aristotelian and Ptolemaic models, but the term 'Scientific Revolution' itself is a 19th-century construct. The paragraph highlights the work of Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, who advocated for experimental methods and publication in journals, contributing to the spread of new ideas. The discussion also touches on the accessibility of books due to the Gutenberg press and the ongoing debates about whether the Scientific Revolution was a significant break or a gradual shift. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of historical research in shaping our understanding of science and its history, with a nod to upcoming topics like the work of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

Keywords

💡Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution refers to a period of significant transformation in scientific thought and methodology in Europe, spanning from the mid-1500s to the 1700s. It marked a shift from traditional Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views to new ways of understanding the natural world. In the video, the term is questioned, as the concept of 'science' in its modern sense was not established until the 1800s, suggesting that the idea of a unified scientific revolution might be an oversimplification of a complex historical process.

💡Historiography

Historiography is the study of the writing of history and how historians interpret and represent the past. The video discusses historiography in the context of the Scientific Revolution, highlighting that historians have different ways of framing historical events and periods. The script points out that the term 'Scientific Revolution' itself is a historiographical construct, which may obscure alternative narratives of scientific development.

💡Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn was a philosopher and historian of science known for his influential work on the structure of scientific revolutions. His book, 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,' published in 1962, introduced the concept of paradigm shifts in scientific thought. In the video, Kuhn's ideas are used to explain how anomalies in existing scientific paradigms can lead to scientific revolutions, as seen in the transitions from Ptolemy to Copernicus, and from Newton to Einstein.

💡Paradigm

In the context of the video, a paradigm refers to a set of shared beliefs, values, and practices that define a scientific community's approach to understanding the world. It includes the standards for what constitutes valid knowledge. The script mentions that when a paradigm cannot explain new data or anomalies, it can lead to a scientific revolution, as scientists seek a new paradigm that can better accommodate these observations.

💡Normal Science

Normal science, as described by Kuhn, is the routine work of scientists within a given paradigm. It is the process of puzzle-solving and extending the existing understanding of the world. The video script uses normal science to contrast with the periods of crisis and revolution when the existing paradigm is challenged and ultimately replaced.

💡Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer known for formulating a heliocentric model of the universe, which placed the Sun at the center instead of the Earth. His work, 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium' (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), was a significant contribution to the Scientific Revolution. In the video, Copernicus is highlighted as a key figure whose ideas challenged the then-dominant geocentric model.

💡Heliocentrism

Heliocentrism is the astronomical model that positions the Sun at the center of the solar system, with the Earth and other planets orbiting around it. The video discusses the early advocacy of this model by Nicole Oresme and its later popularization by Copernicus. Heliocentrism was a radical departure from the Ptolemaic geocentric model and represented a significant shift in understanding the cosmos.

💡Aristarchus of Samos

Aristarchus of Samos was an ancient Greek astronomer who is known for being one of the earliest proponents of the heliocentric model. The video script mentions Aristarchus as a precursor to Copernicus, having proposed a sun-centered solar system with the correct order of the planets, although his ideas were largely rejected by his contemporaries.

💡Retrograde Motion

Retrograde motion is the apparent westward motion of a planet when viewed from Earth, which can make it seem as if the planet is moving backward in the sky. In the video, Copernicus's dissatisfaction with the phenomenon of retrograde motion is cited as one of his motivations for proposing the heliocentric model, as it provided a more coherent explanation for this phenomenon.

💡Equant Point

The equant point is a concept from Ptolemaic astronomy that refers to an imaginary point around which the planets were thought to orbit uniformly. The video mentions Copernicus's rejection of the equant point as part of his critique of the geocentric model, as it was seen as an unnecessary complication in explaining planetary motion.

💡De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, or 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,' is the seminal work by Copernicus that introduced his heliocentric model of the universe. The video script describes the significance of this work and its controversial reception, as well as the legend of Copernicus's reaction to seeing the published book on his deathbed.

Highlights

The Scientific Revolution in Europe is a period marked by significant developments in science, but its definition and impact are subject to debate.

Historiography shows how the term 'science' and the concept of a 'Scientific Revolution' have evolved over time.

Thomas Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' provides a framework for understanding paradigm shifts in science.

Normal science is guided by a paradigm, which is challenged by anomalies leading to potential scientific revolutions.

Nicole Oresme, a precursor to Copernicus, argued for heliocentrism over 160 years before Copernicus but did not ignite a revolution.

Nicolaus Copernicus is often credited with initiating the Scientific Revolution with his heliocentric model, challenging Ptolemy's geocentric view.

Copernicus's 'De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium' was revolutionary not for its new observations but for its persuasive presentation of heliocentrism.

Copernicus's work was not immediately accepted; it took time for his ideas to gain traction and influence future scientists.

The Scientific Revolution is sometimes seen as a break from religious to secular knowledge, but Copernicus's work shows a more nuanced transition.

Copernicus's publisher, Andreas Osiander, added a preface to 'De rev' suggesting it was a thought experiment, not necessarily a true model of the universe.

The idea of a singular Scientific Revolution is challenged by the notion of multiple scientific revolutions happening at different times and places.

The history of science, like science itself, is an active area of research with historians continually re-evaluating and reinterpreting past events.

Nicolas Copernicus and Johannes Kepler are highlighted as significant figures in the history of astronomy, with their works contributing to a shift in understanding of the cosmos.

The Scientific Revolution's impact on daily life was minimal at the time, with most changes occurring in academic circles and publications.

The development of the Scientific Revolution is attributed to the contributions of various 'Nicks', including Oresme and Copernicus, who advanced astronomical knowledge.

The accessibility of scientific literature increased due to the Gutenberg printing press, facilitating the spread of ideas like Copernicus's heliocentrism.

Transcripts

You’ve probably heard about a Scientific Revolution in Europe, lasting from roughly

the mid-1500s to 1700.

And we have some very good stories to tell from this period.

But first, let’s talk historiography, or how historians have told history differently

over time.

The trope of the Scientific Revolution is a useful tool for organizing events in our

story.

But it also obscures other possible framings.

In fact—as we pointed out in episode one—the term “science” wasn’t used in its contemporary

sense until the mid-1800s!

So did a “Scientific Revolution” take place at all?

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYS]

Philosopher, historian, and trained physicist Thomas Kuhn had a lot of thoughts on what

makes a revolution in science.

He wrote a book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, published in 1962.

And in it, Kuhn argued that different sciences undergo “revolutions” when scientists

gather enough data that they can’t explain using their current paradigm, or unstated,

world-organizing theory about how the universe works.

Kuhn’s ideas have animated a lot of debates in the history and philosophy of science,

so let’s make sure we’re clear about them.

Normal science is the kind of knowledge that professional scientists—or natural philosophers—make

most of the time.

They have a combined research program and philosophy about what counts as valid knowledge

called a paradigm.

Anomalies are things that the paradigm can’t explain.

Too many anomalies and… we have a scientific revolution!

Galileo and Newton overturn Aristotle!

Einstein overturns Newton!

Or, jumping back to the mid-1500s, Copernicus overturns Ptolemy!

Historians of science often associate the start of the Scientific Revolution with a

Polish politician and all-around smarty-pants named Nicolaus Copernicus.

(Nick—keep waiting in the green room until we need you!)

But we could just as easily begin with another Nick—Nicole Oresme.

Oresme argued for heliocentrism, or the theory that the earth might revolve around the sun,

one hundred and sixty six years before Copernicus!

Oresme was born around 1320 in Normandy, France.

He attended the College of Navarre, rather than the prestigious University of Paris,

so he probably came from a humble background.

But he was very intelligent, becoming grand master of the College of Navarre and then

a bishop.

Oresme spent a lot of time trying to answer one of our big questions: “where are we?”

He went about this rationally, for example, lining up arguments for or against an earth

that rotates on its axis in his book Livre du ciel et du monde, or The Book of Heaven

and the World, in 1377.

He noted that it made more sense for the earth to move than for all of the heavens to move

around the earth.

Nevertheless, Oresme concluded that the bible dictates that the earth must remain still

and chill.

So close!

Oresme also criticized astrology as a predictive science, noting that the lengths of days don’t

line up perfectly with years, making the recurrence of certain astronomical phenomena very rare.

My dude even noted that farmers and sailors are better at predicting the weather than

astrologers!

And Oresme contributed a lot to math and physics.

He pioneered the use of mathematical graphs to describe how objects move through space

over time.

And he scooped Galileo on the physics of falling objects, again by well over a century!

Oresme’s theories could have helped jump-start a revolution in the physical sciences… but

they didn’t.

Why?

Maybe because he didn’t really push them, and his contemporaries didn’t see them as

particularly important.

A little over a century later, another polymath named Copernicus worked on some similar problems

with more radical results.

Historiography strikes!

There is so much cool history out there, historians have to make hard choices about when to “start”

a big idea and whose name to pin to it.

Okay, Nick—now we’re ready for you!

Nicolaus Copernicus was born in 1473 in what is now Poland to a family of well-off merchants.

We don’t have a ton of documents by Copernicus, up until his major work on astronomy.

But we know that he went to school around 1500 to be a humanist.

Copernicus probably spoke Latin, German, Polish, Greek, and Italian, and he translated Greek

poetry.

He studied arts, math, and astronomy at the University of Kraków.

And he visited the Universities of Bologna and Padua.

Along with the liberal arts, Copernicus also studied medicine.

He would later work mostly as a sort of private physician-slash-economist for the high-ups

back in Poland.

But the reason that we’re talking about this Nick is that he took up astronomy.

He decided that retrograde motion—planets seemingly traveling around in loopty-loops!—was

an “astronomical monster,” an obvious impossibility.

Copernicus also repudiated Ptolemy’s “equant point”—an imaginary mathematical point

that helped earlier astronomers see planets move at uniform speeds.

Ultimately, Copernicus proposed a heliocentric universe of the cosmos: in this model, the

earth rotates on its axis once every twenty-four hours, and the Earth revolves around the sun

once every year.

Copernicus first wrote about heliocentrism in his Commentariolus, or mini-commentary,

in 1514.

He was afraid that many people—being devout Aristotelians, Ptolemy-ians, and Christians—would

ridicule his life’s work.

Most people thought heliocentrism was wrong, and many found the idea downright blasphemous.

So for years, the only source of Copernicus’s radical new theory was the outline that his

protege Rheticus published in 1540, called Narratio prima, or The First Account.

When he was facing the end of his life, however, Copernicus relented.

On his deathbed in 1543, he received the first copy of his book, which I'm going to attempt to pronounce now...

De revolutionibus orbium

cœlestium, or what all the cool cats call “De rev”—On the Revolutions of the Heavenly

Spheres.

According to legend, Copernicus woke up from a coma, took one look at the published De

rev, smiled—and died peacefully, knowing that his great work would finally reach a

wider audience.

And also that he couldn’t get persecuted for it cause he was super dead!

As happens often in the history of science, Copernicus’s contribution wasn’t really

coming up with a new idea, but taking a non-mainstream idea and explaining it in a way that made

people paid attention.

In proposing a sun-centered cosmos, Copernicus was working on a theory that had never really

caught on in Europe but had also never really gone away.

Besides his fellow-Nick, Oresme, Copernicus knew about the heliocentric model espoused

by the ancient Greek astronomer, Aristarchus of Samos, who was born around 310 BCE, about

a decade after Aristotle died.

Aristarchus was waaay ahead of his his time: he put the sun in the center of the solar

system, and then put the planets in their correct order around it.

He guessed that other stars were like the sun, just farther away.

He even deduced that the earth rotates on its axis.

But most astronomers rejected Aristarchus’s ideas… until Copernicus.

If there’s any guy in history that told us where we were the best, it was that greek

dude that everyone forgot about.

But people paid attention to Copernicus.

ThoughtBubble, shine some light on why his book about revolutions was revolutionary:

De rev was not based on new observations, and it did not prove heliocentrism.

In it, Copernicus hypothesized that his theory must be a better-fit model for the cosmos

than the geocentrism of Ptolemy, because a sun-centered model was more “pleasing to

the mind.”

And Copernicus’s theory was so pleasing!

In his heliocentric model, retrograde motion disappeared.

Copernicus dictated a definite order of the planets:

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and then Saturn.

Copernicus’s theory also made the universe twenty times wider across than Ptolemy.

Which turned out not to be big enough, turns out the universe is very big—but still so big that most people didn’t believe it.

But Copernicus didn’t revolutionize everything about the Christian–Aristotelian cosmos.

For one, Copernicus’s math was a disaster.

And, in his theory, the Earth and other planets revolved around a center point that was near

the sun, but wasn’t exactly the sun.

And the planets were still embedded in crystalline spheres.

For Copernicus, the idea that the earth rotates on its axis was the “third motion.”

That is, along with the rotation of the whole sphere, defining a year, and a transition

from day to night, defining a day.

The third motion explained the other stuff.

Thanks Thought Bubble, Nick’s grand theory fit into the first twenty-four pages of his

book.

The rest was dense and, frankly, not very revolutionary astronomy.

Copernicus used Ptolemy's fifteen-hundred year old data to build his system.

So maybe Copernicus wasn’t a revolutionary within science, just one more in a long line of good astronomers.

The Scientific Revolution is sometimes positioned as a break in Europe between a Christian concept

of knowledge and a secular or worldly one.

Certainly, Copernicus’s cosmos doesn’t look like Dante’s.

But if De rev was a break, it wasn’t very sharp.

Copernicus was a diplomat, a religious person, and generally risk-averse.

He was a canon in the church—a position just below bishop.

He dedicated De rev to Pope Paul III.

Protestant leader Martin Luther did reject heliocentrism.

But this didn’t become a public controversy until Galileo’s time, a hundred years later.

In fact, Copernicus’s publisher, Andreas Osiander, added an anonymous preface to De rev,

saying that the book was only a thought experiment:

it didn’t need to be true to help astronomers better understand the math behind the motions

of the planets, and thus make better predictions about them.

It didn’t even need to be probable.

This was… not exactly a battle cry challenging conventional cosmology.

Regardless—according to a common version of the history of science—this is how the

Scientific Revolution started.

Was it a revolution?

The majority of people on earth didn’t know the Scientific Revolution was starting when

De rev appeared.

They didn’t see any armies forcing them at gunpoint to think about the fact that—plot

twist—the earth revolves around the sun.

The “battles” about this, when they occurred at all, took place in the halls of universities

or between the covers of books that most people couldn’t even read!

It’s true that, by 1700, European thinkers had pretty much moved away from the science

of Aristotle and Ptolemy, or at least many parts of it.

But the concept of the Scientific Revolution comes from the nineteenth century.

Historians looked back and said:

“How Europeans answered big questions such as ‘where are we?’

really started to change around the middle of the 1500s.

By the middle of the 1600s, natural philosophers had developed new methods of making all kinds

of knowledge.

We dub this shift, ‘the Scientific Revolution!’”

This idea of a break makes sense when you remember the motto of the Royal Society, “nullius

in verba”—don’t believe something just because Aristotle said it!

Natural philosopher such as Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle pushed for experiments and

published their results in journals.

And more people had access to books like De rev, thanks to Gutenberg.

So you can call it either way: a revolution didn’t take place, because the number of people

involved at the time was small, and not much changed in daily life due to new ideas in

science.

Or a revolution did take place, because Galileo got in trouble for looking at Jupiter, Newton

invented calculus, and French and English natural philosophers could argue via journal.

We’re gonna talk about all these stories soon!

In conclusion: people named Nick make the best astronomers.

Two of them helped catch medieval Europe up to the astronomical knowledge level of India,

or classical Mesoamerica.

(Remember how the Maya were really, really into astronomy, centuries ago?)

So the idea of “the” Scientific Revolution, in early modern Europe, doesn’t make as

much sense as the idea of many scientific revolutions in different places at different

times.

And finally—and this is so critical!—just as science is an active area of research today,

history is too.

Historians have to choose what stories to tell and how to most accurately frame them

for their own times and places.

Next time—we’ll accompany science-boss Tycho Brahe on a duel and meet Copernicus’s

historical brother from another mother, Johannes Kepler.

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