CHAP 2

• INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTION

  • period where paradigm shifts occurred
  • scientific beliefs that have been widely accepted were opposed
  • replacement of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality by a new type of decision making which may be termed instrumental reasoning or cost-benefit analysis
• BIRTH OF MODERN SCIENCE

  • Ancient Greeks
  • the first to explain the world in terms of natural laws rather than myths about gods and heroes
  • passed on the idea of the value of math and experiment in science
• • Aristotle
  • most influential figure in Western science until the 1600's
  • created a body of scientific theory 
  • theories relied very little on experiment, which left them vulnerable to anyone who chose to perform such experiments
  • Church had grafted his theories onto its theology, thus making any attack on Aristotle an attack on the tradition and the Church itself
• • Renaissance scholars
  • uncovered other Greek authors who contradicted Aristotle
  • Found contradicting authorities 
  • encouraged skepticism, freethinking, and experimentation
• • Pattern of development
  • Copernicus
  • The first person who started this slow process of dismantling Aristotle's cosmology 
  • reinforce the process of finding new explanations, which would lead to the work of Kepler and Galileo
  • led to many new questions and theories about the universe until 
  • Isaac Newton would take the new data and synthesize it into a new set of theories that more accurately explained the universe
• Copernican Revolution


  A major shift in scientific thought that challenged the prevailing geocentric model of the universe
• Nicolas Copernicus


  A Polish scholar working at the University of Padua in northern Italy
• Paths of planetary orbits


  • Centuries of observations have shown that the heavens move backwards in what are known as retrogradations
• Ptolemaic model of the universe


  1. Astronomers expanded upon Aristotle's theory of perfectly circular orbits

  2. Adding smaller circular orbits (epicycles) that spun off the main orbits

  3. By the 1500's, the model of the universe had some 80 epicycles attached to ten crystalline spheres
• Ptolemy


  A Greek astronomer who was the main authority who put order to and passed this system of epicycles to posterity
• • Heliocentric Model
  • By placing the sun at the center of the universe and having the earth orbit it, Copernicus reduced the unwieldy number of epicycles from 80 to 34.
  • Greeks as Plato and Pythagoras who believed in a heliocentric (sun centered) universe
  • 150 years after Copernicus' death in 1543 
  • achieved a new model of the universe that worked
• • Tycho Brahe
  • using only the naked eye, tracked the entire orbits of various stars and planets. 
  • kept extensive records of his observations, but did not really know what to do with them. 
  • Successor was Johannes Kepler
• Johannes Kepler

  • was a brilliant mathematician who had a mystical vision of the mathematical perfection of the universe 
  • realized that Brahe's data showed the planetary orbits were not circular
  • his calculations showed that those orbits were elliptical
• • Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
  • first to successfully use math to define the workings of the cosmos
  • Using his telescope, he saw the sun's perfection marred by sunspots and the moon's perfection marred by craters
  • He also saw four moons orbiting Jupiter
  • Book: The Starry Messenger (1611)
  • Reported these findings
  • Church tried to preserve the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic view of the universe by clamping down on his book 
• • 1632 - Galileo published his next book 
  • Dialogue on the Great World Systems
  • dialogue presenting both views "equally"
  • Galileo got his point across by having the advocate of the Church and Aristotelian view named Simplicius (Simpleton). 
  • He was quickly faced with the Inquisition and the threat of torture
  • Galileo's work was the first comprehensive attack on the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic cosmic model 
• • Isaac Newton
  • Theory of gravity
  • his work also completed the fusion of math promoted by Renaissance humanists, Aristotelian logic pushed by medieval university professors, and experiment to test a hypothesis 
  • Invention of calculus made math a much more dynamic tool in predicting and manipulating the laws of nature
  • Book: Principia Mathematica (1687)
  • often seen as the start of the Enlightenment (1687-1789). 
• DARWINIAN REVOLUTION

  • The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859)
  • ushered in a new era in the intellectual history of humanity. 
  • accumulated evidence demonstrating that organisms evolve and discovered the process, natural selection, by which they evolve
• • Natural Theology (1802) by the English theologian William Paley
  • elaborated the argument-from-design as a forceful demonstration of the existence of the Creator. 
  • The functional design of the human eye, argued Paley, provided conclusive evidence of an all-wise Creator. 
• • The Bridgewater Treatises (published between 1833 and 1840)
  • were written by eminent scientists and philosophers 
  • to set forth "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation." 
• FREUDIAN REVOLUTION

  • Sigmund Freud 
  • was born in 1856, before the advent of telephones, radios, automobiles, airplanes
  • died in 1939
• • Before psychoanalysis, which Freud invented, mental illness was almost universally considered 'organic'
• Psychoanalysis has had an enormous impact on the practice of psychiatry
• SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION IN MESOAMERICA

  • Meso-America
  • region from Mexico to Guatemala, Belize and parts of Honduras and El Salvador
  • isolated from the accumulated scientific knowledge of Africa, Asia and Europe
• • Maya civilization 
  • most advanced Mesoamerican civilization 
  • knew how to make paper and had pictorial script called Maya hieroglyphs
  •  that allowed them to record all knowledge on long strips of paper folded harmonica-style into books. 
• • Book: The Dresden Codex 
  • contains predictions of solar eclipses for centuries and a table of predicted positions of Venus
• • The Aztec:
  • kept their own script and languages but assimilated all they could learn from Maya society
  • Their manuscripts describe how the Maya performed their astronomical observations
• • Architecture:
  • The Maya was first to use pitched ceilings in their buildings after the invention of the corbelled vault
  • Aztec city builders also understood the need for public sanitation; public latrines were found along all highways
• ASIAN SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 

  • Japan most notable country in Asia in terms of scientific and technological achievement (electronics and automobile products)
  • Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China together produce a staggering 90% of the world’s digital gadgets
  • South Korea’s cultural popularity around the world has caused a number of startup’s to emerge working within the digital and technology sectors
  • Taiwan - turning to software and content development.
• SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION  IN MIDDLE EAST

  • greatest advances were made in Mesopotamia
  • development of astronomy seems to have been greatly accelerated by that of astrology
  • Engineering and architecture 
  • Egyptians pyramids and temples of granite and sandstone
  • Babylonians - development of such practical arts as irrigation
  • Egyptians and Mesopotamians wrote no theoretical treatises
• • Alphabet greatest invention of the ancient Middle East
  • Early Hyksos period (17th century BC) 
  • the Northwestern Semites living in Egypt adapted hieroglyphic characters
• Scientific Revolution in Africa


  Advancements in fields of astronomy, physics, and mathematics
• Laird Scranton


  Researcher making use of the extensive collections of Marcel Griaule
• Dogon knowledge systems


  • Deepened our understanding of Malian cosmological myths and their perceptions of the structure of matter and the physical world
  • Explored in terms of their perceptions on astronomy
• Solar calendar


  Evolved from the Egyptian calendar of twelve months
• INFORMATION REVOLUTION

  • a period of change that describes current economic, social and technological trends beyond the Industrial Revolution
  • fueled by advances in semiconductor technology
  • Computer technology  - root of this change
  • led to the age of the internet
  • where optical communication networks play a key role in delivering massive amounts of data
  • Since the first edition of Undersea Fiber Communication Systems in 2002
  • optical fiber communication industry moved into the “coherent” era
• Nubian builders


  1. Calculated the volumes of masonry and building materials

  2. Calculated the slopes of pyramids, for construction purposes