MEPX
Chapter 2 of 10All chapters
  1. 1Before modern science
  2. 2The scientific revolution
  3. 3Chemistry and the elements
  4. 4Life sciences
  5. 5Modern physics
  6. 6The molecular era
  7. 7Computing and mathematics
  8. 8Astronomy and space
  9. 9Medicine and public health
  10. 10What the record shows

Chapter 2 of 10

The scientific revolution

Copernicus to Newton.

Rearranging the heavens

Copernicus placed the Sun at the centre, Kepler found the orbits were ellipses, and Galileo's telescope produced evidence that could be seen rather than argued.

  • Galileo was tried and confined for defending heliocentrism.
  • Kepler worked from Tycho Brahe's decades of precise observations.

Newton

The Principia unified terrestrial and celestial motion under a few laws, which is the moment physics became predictive across scales.