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Feb 19, 1473
Nicolas Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model of the universe, which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center. He died May 24,1543. -
Dec 13, 1514
Andreas Vesalius
He was often found examining bones at the Cemetery of the Innocents. Vesalius was forced to leave Paris in 1536 due to the opening of hostilities between the Holy Roman Empire and France, and returned to Leuven. Over the next eleven years Vesalius traveled with the court. After the abdication of Emperor Charles V he continued at court in great favour with his son Philip II, who rewarded him with a pension for life and by being made a count palatine. -
Jan 22, 1561
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564– 8 January 1642), was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. He was called Father Of Science. -
Dec 14, 1564
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe (14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601), born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. He was born in Scania, then part of Denmark, now part of modern-day Sweden. Tycho was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer and alchemist. In his De nova stella (On the new star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that "new stars". -
Dec 27, 1571
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. -
Apr 1, 1578
William Harvey
William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician. He was the first to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the body by the heart, though earlier writers had provided precursors of the theory. After his death the William Harvey Hospital was constructed in the town of Ashford, several miles from his birthplace of Folkestone. -
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. -
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi ( January 22, 1592 – October 24, 1655) was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631. -
Rene Descartes
René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day.