Editing Scientific Revolution (section)

==Ancient and medieval background==
[[File:PeuerbachSuperioribus2.png|thumb|[[Ptolemaic system|Ptolemaic model]] of the spheres for [[Venus]], [[Mars]], [[Jupiter]], and [[Saturn]]. [[Georg von Peuerbach]], ''Theoricae novae planetarum'', 1474.]]

{{Further|Aristotelian physics|Science in the Middle Ages}}
The Scientific Revolution was built upon the foundation of [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] learning and science in the Middle Ages, as it had been elaborated and further developed by [[Byzantine science|Roman/Byzantine science]] and [[Science in the medieval Islamic world|medieval Islamic science]].<ref name="Grant">[[#Grant|Grant]], pp. 29–30, 42–47.</ref> Some scholars have noted a direct tie between "particular aspects of traditional Christianity" and the rise of science.<ref>{{citation | last = Noll | first = Mark | author-link = Mark Noll | title = Science, Religion, and A.D. White: Seeking Peace in the "Warfare Between Science and Theology" | publisher = The Biologos Foundation | page = 4 | url = http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/noll_scholarly_essay2.pdf | access-date = 14 January 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150322013257/http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/noll_scholarly_essay2.pdf | archive-date = 22 March 2015 | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last1 = Lindberg | first1 = David C. | author-link = David C. Lindberg | last2 = Numbers | first2 = Ronald L. | author2-link = Ronald L. Numbers | title = God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science | place = Berkeley and Los Angeles | publisher = University of California Press | year = 1986 | chapter = Introduction | pages = 5, 12 | isbn = 978-0-520-05538-4 | quote = It would be indefensible to maintain, with [[Reijer Hooykaas|Hooykaas]] and [[Stanley Jaki|Jaki]], that Christianity was fundamentally responsible for the successes of seventeenth-century science.  It would be a mistake of equal magnitude, however, to overlook the intricate interlocking of scientific and religious concerns throughout the century.}}</ref> The "[[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian tradition]]" was still an important intellectual framework in the 17th century, although by that time [[Natural philosophy|natural philosophers]] had moved away from much of it.<ref name="Hannam, James 2011 p342"/> Key scientific ideas dating back to [[classical antiquity]] had changed drastically over the years and in many cases had been discredited.<ref name="Hannam, James 2011 p342"/> The ideas that remained, which were transformed fundamentally during the Scientific Revolution, include:
* [[Aristotle]]'s cosmology that placed the [[Earth]] at the center of a spherical hierarchic [[cosmos]]. The terrestrial and celestial regions were made up of different elements which had different kinds of ''natural movement''.
** The terrestrial region, according to Aristotle, consisted of concentric spheres of the four [[classical element]]s—[[Earth (classical element)|earth]], [[water (classical element)|water]], [[air (classical element)|air]], and [[fire (classical element)|fire]]. All bodies naturally moved in straight lines until they reached the sphere appropriate to their elemental composition—their ''natural place''. All other terrestrial motions were non-natural, or ''violent''.<ref>[[#Grant|Grant]], pp. 55–63, 87–104</ref><ref>[[#Pedersen|Pedersen]], pp. 106–10.</ref>
** The celestial region was made up of the fifth element, [[Aether (classical element)|aether]], which was unchanging and moved naturally with uniform circular motion.<ref>[[#Grant|Grant]], pp. 63–68, 104–16.</ref> In the Aristotelian tradition, astronomical theories sought to explain the observed irregular motion of celestial objects through the combined effects of multiple uniform circular motions.<ref>[[#Pedersen|Pedersen]], p. 25</ref>
* The [[Geocentric model|Ptolemaic model of planetary motion]]: based on the geometrical model of [[Eudoxus of Cnidus]], [[Ptolemy]]'s ''[[Almagest]]'', demonstrated that calculations could compute the exact positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets in the future and in the past, and showed how these computational models were derived from astronomical observations. As such they formed the model for later astronomical developments. The physical basis for Ptolemaic models invoked layers of [[Celestial spheres|spherical shells]], though the most complex models were inconsistent with this physical explanation.<ref>[[#Pedersen|Pedersen]], pp. 86–89.</ref>

Ancient precedent existed for alternative theories and developments which prefigured later discoveries in the area of physics and mechanics; but in light of the limited number of works to survive translation in a period when many books were lost to warfare, such developments remained obscure for centuries and are traditionally held to have had little effect on the re-discovery of such phenomena; whereas the invention of the printing press made the wide dissemination of such incremental advances of knowledge commonplace. Meanwhile, however, significant progress in geometry, mathematics, and astronomy was made in medieval times.

It is also true that many of the important figures of the Scientific Revolution shared in the general [[Renaissance]] respect for ancient learning and cited ancient pedigrees for their innovations. Copernicus,<ref>Kuhn, Thomas (1957) ''The Copernican Revolution''. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr. p. 142.</ref> Galileo,<ref name="Galileo" /><ref name="Moody" /><ref name="Clagett" /><ref>{{cite journal|author=Espinoza, Fernando|year=2005|title=An analysis of the historical development of ideas about motion and its implications for teaching|journal=Physics Education|volume=40|issue=2|page=141|bibcode=2005PhyEd..40..139E|doi=10.1088/0031-9120/40/2/002|s2cid=250809354 }}</ref> [[Johannes Kepler]]<ref>
{{cite journal|author=Eastwood, Bruce S. |title=Kepler as Historian of Science: Precursors of Copernican Heliocentrism according to ''De revolutionibus'', I, 10|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|volume= 126|year=1982|pages= 367–94}} reprinted in Eastwood, B.S. (1989) ''Astronomy and Optics from Pliny to Descartes,'' London: Variorum Reprints.</ref> and Newton<ref name="rattansi">{{Cite journal|last1=McGuire|first1=J. E.|last2=Rattansi|first2=P.M.|year=1966|title=Newton and the 'Pipes of Pan'|url=http://ls.poly.edu/~jbain/mms/texts/66McGuire%28Pipes%29.pdf|journal=Notes and Records of the Royal Society |volume=21|issue=2|pages=108|doi=10.1098/rsnr.1966.0014|s2cid=143495080|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304064640/http://ls.poly.edu/~jbain/mms/texts/66McGuire(Pipes).pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> all traced different ancient and medieval ancestries for the [[Heliocentrism|heliocentric system]]. In the Axioms Scholium of his ''Principia,'' Newton said its axiomatic [[Newton's laws of motion|three laws of motion]] were already accepted by mathematicians such as [[Christiaan Huygens]], Wallace, Wren and others. While preparing a revised edition of his ''Principia'', Newton attributed his law of gravity and his first law of motion to a range of historical figures.<ref name="rattansi"/><ref name="Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton">{{cite book | last=Newton | first=Isaac | title=Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton|editor1-last=Hall|editor1-first=A.R.|editor2-last=Hall|editor2-first=M.B. | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1962 | pages=310–11 | quote = All those ancients knew the first law [of motion] who attributed to atoms in an infinite vacuum a motion which was rectilinear, extremely swift and perpetual because of the lack of resistance... Aristotle was of the same mind, since he expresses his opinion thus...[in ''Physics'' 4.8.215a19-22], speaking of motion in the void [in which bodies have no gravity and] where there is no impediment he writes: 'Why a body once moved should come to rest anywhere no one can say. For why should it rest here rather than there ? Hence either it will not be moved, or it must be moved indefinitely, unless something stronger impedes it.'}}</ref>

Despite these qualifications, the standard theory of the history of the Scientific Revolution claims that the 17th century was a period of revolutionary scientific changes. Not only were there revolutionary theoretical and experimental developments, but that even more importantly, the way in which scientists worked was radically changed. For instance, although intimations of the concept of [[inertia]] are suggested sporadically in ancient discussion of motion,<ref>{{cite book |first=R. |last=Sorabji |year=2005 |title=The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200–600 AD: Physics |series=G – Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-8988-4 |lccn=2004063547 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0QpQw8JDgQcC&pg=PA348 |page=348 |quote=An impetus is an inner force impressed into a moving body from without. It thus contrasts with purely external forces like the action of air on projectiles in Aristotle, and with purely internal forces like the nature of the elements in Aristotle and his followers.… Impetus theories also contrast with theories of inertia which replaced them in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.… Such inertial ideas are merely sporadic in Antiquity and not consciously attended to as a separate option. Aristotle, for example, argues in ''Phys.'' 4.8 that in a vacuum a moving body would never stop, but the possible implications for inertia are not discussed. |access-date=18 November 2020 |archive-date=2 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240102074100/https://books.google.com/books?id=0QpQw8JDgQcC&pg=PA348#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Heath, Thomas L. (1949) ''Mathematics in Aristotle''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 115–16.</ref> the salient point is that Newton's theory differed from ancient understandings in key ways, such as an external force being a requirement for violent motion in Aristotle's theory.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1119/1.1970872| title = Galileo and the Law of Inertia| journal = American Journal of Physics| volume = 32| issue = 8| pages = 601–608| year = 1964| last1 = Drake | first1 = S. | bibcode = 1964AmJPh..32..601D}}</ref>