-
Period: Jan 1, 1500 to
Scientific Revolution
-
Jan 1, 1543
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)
A seminal work on the heliocenter theory of Nicolaus Copernicus.
Offered an alternative model of the universe to Ptolemy's geocentric system. -
Jan 1, 1573
De nova stella
Published by Tycho Brahe. Following the year after Tycho's Star had a dramatic supernova. The star blazed for 18 months as brightly as -4 magnitude. Its key importance, by tradition and as Tycho and others argued, was that the New Star was clearly located beyond the sphere of the Moon. If this were so, it would undermine the Scholastic belief, adapted from Aristotle, that the heavens were immutable. -
Jan 1, 1577
Comet of 1577
The year of the 'Comet of 1577' made famous by Tycho Brahe, and again challenging a central tenet inherited from Aristotle, that the celestial spheres were 'solid' perhaps even crystalline. Because the path of the comet seemed to many astronomers to be above the sphere of the moon (that is, superlunary) the apparent path of the comet would 'shatter' anything in its path. If Tycho's observations 'shattered the crystalline spheres' then a reasonable question might be 'What moves the planets'. -
Demonstration of Gravity by Galileo
Galileo demonstrates, from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa, that a one- pound weight and a one hundred-pound weight, dropped at the same moment, hit the ground at the same moment, refuting the contention of the Aristotelian system that the rate of fall of an object is dependent upon its weight. -
Astronomiae pars Optica (The Optical Part of Astronomy)
Johannes Kepler publishes Astronomiae pars Optica (The Optical Part of Astronomy) where he argues that light rays are rectilinear, that they diminish in intensity by the inverse square of their distance as they travel from the light source. Kepler also argues that the retina is the seat of vision, and it is there that a 'pictura' is formed, an inverted image that is somehow transmitted to the 'seat of judgment'. -
30x Telescope
Desgined by Galileo. Used to discover many planets and craters. Confirmed the Copernicus Model. -
Rudolphine Tables
Written by Johannes Kepler. Based on Tycho's data and his own laws of planetary motion, provide the most accurate astronomical tables up to that time. -
Two New Sciences
"Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences" by Galileo Galilei. His last book. Published without a license from the Inquisition because of a trial of a former book, the Roman Inquisition bannished publication of books from Galileo. The sciences named in the title are the strength of materials and the motion of objects. -
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Written by Sir Isaac Newton "Mathmatical Principles of Natural Philosophy" A total of 3 editions. Edition 2 in 1713. Edition 3 in 1726. The Principia states Newton's laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics, also Newton's law of universal gravitation, and a derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first obtained empirically). -
Historia coelestis Britannica
Written by John Flamsteed. Contains positions for some 3000 stars, more than three times that of Tycho's catalogue.
