Nicolaus Copernicus: The Scientific Revolution

The intellectual course of European history was drastically altered during the mid sixteenth century Scientific Revolution. Many philosophers, intellectuals, and scientist had already begun their quest as advancement seekers since the beginning of the Renaissance era (early 1400’s to the late 1500’s), however they never really collected societal changing facts about the way the universe and its people work. When Nicolaus Copernicus first presented Europe with his sun-centered model of the universe, a snowball effect occurred, and in came more discoveries up until the Enlightenment. The Scientific Revolution was Europe's major turning point with its astronomical discoveries, changes in previous mathematics, and controversies with the church.

As formerly mentioned, Nicolaus Copernicus had changed the previous sixteenth century model of the universe where “earth was at the center and Heaven on the outermost circle” to the sun being in a steady position in the center while the sun moved around it (1). This new discovery of a heliocentric system took the work of many intellectuals to make this not only a guess, but a solid theory. Giordano Bruno was one of the intellectuals that provided proof for this theory. Buno tied in the already accepted belief that the universe is infinite with his belief that, since the universe is infinite, no one planet could be the center. In addition Giordano Bruno, was able to calculate and rationalize how the sun could be the center and not the earth with the idea that “the position of a body [sun] is relative to that of the other bodies [earth]” (5). To add more proof to the findings of a heliocentric model, Rene Descartes and other intellectuals contributed to Isaac Newton's new math system known as “calculus.” Calculus helped mathematicians, and astronomers figure out how the world around us was constantly changing and in movement. For these reasons, the mathematical side of the Revolution was key to the understanding of our

All of these new ideas and theories did not come easily, due to the controversies it had with the church. The use of a sun-centered universe seemed impossible and evil in the eye of the church, for the teaching of a geocentric universe had continuously been preached through scriptures and masses over centuries. The church believed that “this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God,” the art being science and its factual truth rather than religious explanations (4). The church feared that with science less and less would believe in miracles and works of God and solely rely on science as its source of education. After presenting his heliocentric model, Copernicus stated “they [religious men] will cry out at once and say that I and my theory should be rejected” (2). Everyone at the time understood that with new controversial theories came persecution by the church. An example of this would be Galileo’s inquisition for his findings and teachings of heavenly bodies. Although Galileo was tried for heresy, he was not killed but closely watched for his ideas of heavenly bodies could be disastrous to the