In
the Middle Ages, Europe made progress in science due to his contact with the
Arabs, who in turn learnt many things from Indians. However, pure science could
not develop until the advent of the sixteenth century. In the thirteenth
century, Roger Bacon rejected scholasticism for its "basic weakness and
advocated learning through first-hand knowledge. He rejected the findings of
Aristotle and insisted on methods of observation, experimentation and
reasoning.
Scientific Methods:
In
Britain Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) advocated that knowledge should be tested
through verification, that is, by empirical methods. He stressed new ideals for
education in his Novum Organum in 1620 and also urged the use of empirical
methods to test hypotheses. In the New Atlantis he said that man can harness
nature through use of scientific knowledge.
Copernicus (1473-1543):
For
well over thirteen centuries, Europeans never questioned the geocentric theory
of Ptolemy, the Greek scientist of the second century A.D. This was so because
his scheme or theory was in agreement with the "cosmology of the
Bible". But in 1543 a little book was published entitled On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. It was written by the Polish astronomer
Nicolaus Copernicus, who died on the day the book was published. Copernicus
claimed that it was not the sun that moved round the earth, it was vice versa.
We call this the heliocentric world picture.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630):
German
astronomer Johannes Kepler presented the results of comprehensive observations
which showed that the planets move in elliptical—or oval—orbits with the sun at
one focus. He also pointed out that the speed of a planet is greatest when it
is closest to the sun, and that the farther a planet’s orbit is from the sun
the slower it moves.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642):
He
was a great astronomer, mathematician, and physicist of Italy. He used a
telescope to study the movements of heavenly bodies for the first time and
proved beyond doubt the validity of Copernican theory. He got into trouble with
the Roman Catholic Church. Three years later (in 1600) Giordano Bruno was declared
heretic by the inquisition and burnt at the stake for agreeing with the
Copernican system. But the greatest significance of Galileo was that he first
formulated the so-called Law of Inertia. Galileo
formulated it thus: A body remains in the state which it is in, at rest or in
motion, as long as no external force compels it to change its state.
Newton (1643-1727)
He
formulated what we call the Law of Universal Gravitation. This law states that
every object attracts every other object with a force that increases in
proportion to the size of the objects and decreases in proportion to the
distance between the objects. Newton proved that
this attraction—or gravitation—is universal, which means it is operative
everywhere, also in space between heavenly bodies.
Michael Servetus
His
major interest was theology, but who practiced medicine for a living,
discovered the lesser or pulmonary circulation of the blood, in an attempt to
prove the veracity of the Virgin birth. He described how the blood leaves the right
chambers of the heart, is carried to the lungs to be purified, then returns to
the heart and is conveyed from that organ to all parts of the body. But
Servetus had no idea of the return of the blood to the heart through the veins,
a discovery that was made by the Englishman William Harvey in the early
seventeenth century.
Vesalius (1514-1564)
Vesalius's
On the Structure of the Human Body, was published in 1543, the same year that
saw the issuance of Copernicus's Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Vesalius,
a cosmopolitan who was born in Brussels and studied in Paris but later migrated
to Italy where he taught anatomy and surgery at the University of Padua,
approached his research from the correct point of view that much of ancient
anatomical doctrine was in error. Art historians are uncertain as to whether
van Calcar was directly inspired in executing his illustrations for Vesalius by
knowledge of earlier anatomical drawings
of Leonardo da Vinci, but even if not, he certainly relied on a cumulative tradition
of expert anatomical depiction bequeathed to him by Italian Renaissance art.
Gathered in Vesalius's Structure of the Human Body of 1543.
William Harvey,
the famous English Physician discovered
the circulation of blood (1628) from the heart to the arteries, then to the
veins, and thereafter back to the heart.
Scientific inventions
One
of the most important scientific inventions was the moveable printing press by
Guttenburg in 1460. Another important invention which helped astronomers was
the telescope (1608). It was improved by Galileo. Christiaan Huygens invented
the pendulum clock (1656). The invention of microscope by Anton Van Leeuwenhoek
with which he discovered protozoa, helped the growth of the knowledge of
medicine and biology. Thermometer was used to take body's temperature and it
was invented in 1714 by Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German physicist.
In
this way, the scientists of the renaissance period by doubt, observation and
experiment invented the method which is being used even today. The scientific
temper led to a critical examination of long accepted ideas and practices. It
has inspired and led man to test new ideas in art, business, education and many
other areas of life. Its inventions laid the foundation stone of the new era
and took initiative towards improving the life of human beings. But till now
the scientific world had not been able to free itself from its witchcraft.
Scientist Kepler also resorted to witchcraft to earn money.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें