Nicolaus Copernicus (Niclas Kopernik), 1473-1543, Danish

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Nicolaus Copernicus (Niclas Kopernik), 1473-1543, Danish

Made careful observations of the movements of the stars and planets and concluded that the Earth and other planets must revolve around the Sun, unlike what Ptolemy avered.

Used mathematics to prove his theory, though the math was still somewhat off because he assumed that the planets moved in perfect circles (as had Ptolemy)

Latinized form of Niclas Kopernik, who was Danish but worked mainly in Poland.
Spent many long years making careful observations of the movements of the stars and the planets.

He would not let his observations and conclusions (written in “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres) be published until his death because he knew he was challenging the accepted religious view of the earth’s place. For himself, however, he liked the idea that the Sun was the center of the Universe because it seemed much more fitting that God should have made such a splendid and bright thing as the Sun be most central.

The mathematics he worked out seemed to fit better if the earth revolved around the sun. However, the math still didn’t work out perfectly (you still couldn’t predict exactly where a planet was going to be). This was because he believed the orbits to be perfect circles.

Many people did not accept his theory, some because of religious beliefs and others because his math was still not perfect.

Leonard Fuchs, 1501-1566 , German

Produced a guide to collecting medical plants

Commissioned woodcut prints to illustrate his work so physicians would have clear ideas of what they were working with.

Focused on studying nature to add to the work of the ancients.

physician, professor of medicine

LEONARD FUCHS saw his main task in the ending of the intellectual rein practised by the Arabs, especially in the subjects of medicine and pharmacology. He wanted the great masters of ancient Greece to be remembered. To gain knowledge of plants, he recommended the study of nature. His work "De historia stirpium commentarii", published in 1542, belongs to the classical works of botanical literature. The plant species were listed in alphabetical order. With FUCHS, too, the text pays reference to DIOSCORIDE. The South American Onagracean genus Fuchsia is called after him.

Andreas Vesalius, 1514-1564, German

Insisted medical students learn from dissection rather than from reading descriptions by Galen (who appears to have used apes rather than humans for his experiments).

Published On the Fabric of the Human Body, which included such accurate drawings and descriptions of muscles that modern scientists use them still.

Made clear and precise observations on the human skeleton as well.

The reorganizer of the study of anatomy; b. at Brussels, 31 Dec., 1514; d. in a Greek city on his journey home from Jerusalem in 1564. He was descended from a German family of physicians called Witing (Wytinck), which came from Wesel on the Rhine, and was the son of Andreas Vesalius, court-apothecary to the Emperor Charles V. As a boy he showed great interest in the dissection of animals. After pursuing his early studies at Louvain, he went about 1533 to the University of Paris, where Johannes Quinterus of Andernach and Jacobus Sylvius taught medicine. At the university Vesalius gave his attention largely to anatomy, especially that of the bones which he found in cemeteries and at the place of execution. He dissected entire animals, and gained in this way so much knowledge that at the request of his teachers and fellow-students he publicly dissected a corpse and explained its parts. In 1536 he returned to Louvain and made a public dissection there, the first in eighteen years. He also published a more accurate Latin translation of the ninth book of Almansor of Rhazes. In 1537 he went to Venice, thence to Padua, where he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and on 6 Dec. was appointed professor of surgery and anatomy at Padua. Contrary to custom, Vesalius dissected the bodies himself and explained the different parts: the former usage had been for a surgeon to dissect while a physician read aloud suitable chapters from Galen or the anatomic of Mundino. In 1538 he published the Tabulae anatomicae from his own drawings and those of the painter Johann Stephan of Kalkar; this was the first fruits of his investigations. His labours led him to the conviction that Claudius Galenus had never dissected the dead body of a human being, and that Galen's celebrated anatomy lacks the stamp of truthfulness, as it is based almost entirely on the dissection of apes. In 1540 he began his celebrated work Fabrica, in 1542 went to Basle in order to supervise the printing of it, returned to Padua at the end of 1543 after the publication was completed, spent a short time in Bologna and Pisa, and in 1544 was appointed court physician to the Emperor Charles V. Up to the time of the emperor's abdication in 1556, Vesalius accompanied Charles on all his journeys and campaigns. After the abdication he entered the service of King Philip II of Spain. For unknown reasons, in the spring of 1564 he undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from which he never returned.
The services of Vesalius to anatomy were that he was the first to lead the way to independent investigation in the examination of the structure of the human body, and in the teaching concerning it, and that he discovered the numerous errors of Galen. In so doing he destroyed the foundation of the whole teaching of Galenism and of the belief in its authority, and pointed out the way for the free investigation of nature. However, the numerous followers of Galen began a biter struggle against the daring investigator, and even the medical school of Padua turned against him. Jacobus Sylvius called him a madman (vesanus) and declared that an advance beyond the knowledge of Galen was impossible, and that Galen had not erred, but probably the human body had changed since then. Bartholomew Eustachus of Rome declared he would rather err with Galen than accept the truth from the innovator. His enemies even sought to prevent his appointment as physician to the emperor and spread slanders broadcast, so that Vesalius, depressed by his troubles, threw a large part of his manuscript and works into the fire. Nevertheless his works and drawings were frequently used by opponents unrighteously for their own advantage.

Tycho Brahe, 1546-1601, Danish

Convinced that the improvement of astronomy required precise and accurate observations.

Built the finest observatory in all of Europe at the time and made meticulous notes and calculations.

Brahe was born in Denmark, now in Sweden.

In 1572 Tycho observed the new star in Cassiopeia and published a brief tract about it the following year.

He became convinced that the improvement of astronomy hinged on accurate observations. Tycho accepted an offer from the King Frederick II to fund an observatory. He was given the little island near Copenhagen, and there he built his observatory which became the finest observatory in Europe.

He racked up numerous (accurate) observations but died before he evaluated what they meant. This was good for him because he was hoping to prove Copernicus wrong, but he proved him right instead.

Francis Bacon, 1562-1626, English

Most well known as an advocate and defender of the scientific revolution

Argued that the ancients might be wrong and that humans needed to look at things for themselves, to conduct experiments was the only way to know things for certain.

Argued for scientific induction (observing a variety of events and then coming up with general principles to explain them)—also called empiricism.

philosopher and statesman. Francis Bacon started out his professional life as a lawyer, but he is most well known as an advocate and defender of the scientific revolution.

He argued that the ancients might be wrong and that humans needed to look at things for themselves, to conduct experiments was the only way to know things for certain.

His philosophical works lay out a complex methodology for scientific induction (observing a variety of events and then coming up with general principles to explain them). (Deduction: starts with principals you believe to be true, then use those to explain events.)

Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642, Italian

Insisted that all physical events can be explained with mathematical models (and if the math doesn’t work, then our assumptions about the event are incorrect).

Studied balls rolling down inclined planes and developed two important ideas: falling objects accelerate independent of their mass and objects retain their speed unless a forces stops them (objects do not naturally seek to be at rest).

Discovered that a pendulum’s swings take the same amount of time, which made precise clocks possible.

Determined that projectiles follow a parabolic path.

Created his own telescope (stronger) after seeing one created by a Dutchman. Used it to look at the sky.

Made many new discoveries: four satellites of Jupiter; Venus had phases (like the moon); the moon had mountains and was not a perfect sphere or a ball of gas—these supported Copernicus’ view of the universe.

He also was first westerner to see sunspots.

His books were very popular but were condemned by the Church. He was forced to recant his theories of a heliocentric universe under threat of torture.

Galileo was one of the first people to use a telescope to observe the sky. He read about a 10x telescope and promptly made an improved 20x one.

He read Kepler’s work and felt that the Copernican model of the universe was correct.

Galileo discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter. He also observed that the planet Venus exhibited a full set of "phases" like the Moon. Both of these discoveries lent support to the heliocentric model of the solar system developed by Copernicus.

However, his theories did not get the planets to show up “on time” and did not answer why they moved in circles around the sun to begin with. It also did not answer why the moon, if it was so like the earth, did not just fall to the ground.

He was the first westerner to report sunspots (there is evidence that Chinese astronomers had already observed them). He also argued that the Moon is not a perfect sphere (like a billiard ball) but has mountains.

Galileo wrote several long books which were circulated widely, at least outside of Italy. The Starry Messenger, which argued for the heliocentric view of the universe. However, the Church in Rome condemned his writings and he was forced to recant under threat of tortue.

He is often credited with being one of the first scientists to fully exploit the experimental method and to insist that the universe and all physical things in it can be explained with mathematical models (if the mathematics doesn’t work, then our assumptions are wrong about the nature of an object).

His study of balls rolling down inclined planes convinced him that falling objects are accelerated independent of their mass, and that objects retain their velocity unless a force acts on them (i.e, they move without someone moving them constantly)

Galileo also described that a pendulum's swings always take the same amount of time, independent of the amplitude, a discovery which made later precise clocks possible.

Worked in Pisa and Venice, Italy.

Several of Galileo's inventions exist today only in his notes and drawings. He created sketches of imaginary devices such as a candle and mirror combination to reflect light through an entire home, an automatic tomato picker, a pocket comb that doubled as an eating utensil, and what appeared to be a crude form of ballpoint pen.

He sold his telescope to businessmen as a way to know which ships were coming into harbor first.

Johannes Kepler, 1571-1630, German

Believed the universe was mathematically understandable; that God would have created it that way.

Was a student of Tycho Brahe and was able to use all his data in his own calculations.

Determined that, mathematically, the orbits of the planets made sense if they were ellipses rather than circles.

A German astronomer and mathematician, best known for his laws of planetary motion.

He was a student of Tycho Brahe and was able to use all the carefully recorded data that Brahe had gathered in his calculations.

He was a great mathematician and he is the one who figured out that, mathematically, the planets must move in ellipses and that they move faster when they are closer to the sun. Once this was determined, the heliocentric theory made much more sense and planetary positions could be easily predicted.

However, he still did not answer the question of what kept the planets in the heavens and moving in orbit around the sun. Or why people who jumped in the air didn’t land some ways away.

William Harvey, 1578-1657, English

Conducted many animal dissections and was convinced Galen’s ideas on blood were incorrect based on his careful observations and experiments.

Argued for the idea that blood was pumped around the body by the heart before returning to the heart and being recirculated in a closed system.

Could not prove how this was done however (microscope not yet invented) and so his ideas were not accepted until much later.

William Harvey (April 1, 1578 - June 3, 1657) was a doctor at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London (1609-43) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Born in Folkestone, Harvey studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, receiving a BA in 1597, and then he studied medicine at the prestigious University of Padua under Fabricus, graduating in 1602. He returned to England and married Elizabeth Brown, daughter of the court physician to Elizabeth I. He is remembered for his 1628 work Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals), where, based on scientific methodology, he argued for the idea that blood was pumped around the body by the heart before returning to the heart and being recirculated in a closed system. This clashed with the accepted Galenic model which identified venous (dark red) and arterial (brighter and thinner) blood, each with distinct and separate functions. Growth and energy were derived from venous blood created in the liver from chyle. While arterial blood gave vitality by containing pneuma (air) and originated in the heart. Blood flowed from both creating organs to all parts of the body where it was consumed, no blood returned to the heart or liver. The heart did not pump blood around, the heart's motion sucked blood in during diastole and the blood moved by the pulsation of the arteries themselves. Galen believed that the arterial blood was created by venous blood passing from the left ventricle to the right by passing through 'pores' in the interventricular septum, air passed from the lungs via the pulmonary artery to the left side of the heart. As the arterial blood was created 'sooty' vapors were created and passed to the lungs also via the pulmonary artery to be exhaled.