The Scientific Revolution Part 1

• Bernal treats economic and political factors as the sources of the scientific revolution, not the context
• Bernal highlights the transformation of the Feudal economy
• Rise of monarchy and the bourgeoisie
• Technical improvements in agriculture and textile production
• Expansion of trade due to improvements in agriculture and navigation increases markets
• Capital investment in science and technology

Marxism in Theory

• Exploitation and the economy
• From slavery to serfs to the proletariat
• Capitalists own the means of production, worker alienation
• Capitalism is only a stage in a larger historical process
• Role of science and technology in this process
• Interrelation of scientific and economic changes
• Importance of science
• Economic transformation more important than scientific development (“possible and necessary”)
• Science is permanent, capitalism is temporary
• Practical and abstract elements of science merged in scientific revolution
• Economic and religious changes allow scientists to challenge ancient authorities
• Competing authority, not new authority

Astronomy and the Scientific Revolution

• Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), Torun, Poland
• De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 1543
• Problems with Ptolemy
• Copernicus:
  Spherical earth, rotated on axis
  Large Universe
  Sun-Centred model
  Mars and Venus
  Retrograde motion
• Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
• New star in 1572, comet in 1577
• Geocentric model that had all of the planets revolving around the sun, and the sun revolving around the Earth.
• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), mathematician and a supporter of Copernicus
• Elliptical orbits and non-uniform velocities
• Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642, Many interests, mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, and instrumentation
• Telescopic observations produced criticisms of Ptolemaic and Aristotelian cosmology:
  Moons of Jupiter
  Imperfections on the moon
  Phases of Venus
  Planets and stars
• Disputes over telescopic observations
• Church condemnation of Copernicanism in 1616
• Galileo was censured from holding, defending or teaching it.
• Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, 1632
• Protestant reformation and Galileo’s status