This contradicted express statements by Aristotle concerning the heavens where no change could ever take place. The Church at the time accepted Aristotle's view that the heavens were made of perfect and unalterable substance called the "quintessence". ... Throughout the book Drake attempts to portray Galileo as a man striving for a new philosophy that would displace verbal exercise of Aristotle but unlike them did not set one forth. Drake comments that, "Aristotle's physics offered material, formal, efficient and purposive causes of every kind of change in nature with little proof o...

• Word Count: 3037
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Galileo was one of the most significant contributors to the scientific revolution. Galileo recognized that there were many theoretical problems when it came to physical science. In fact, Galileo's interpretations were so contrary to popular theories that he was sometimes laughed at and disrespected ...

• Word Count: 338
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

During Galileo's time and the centuries before it, Aristotelian astronomy, that everything revolved around the Earth, was generally accepted, until Galileo began to invent and experiment with the telescope thus proving the renowned Catholic astronomer Aristotle wrong. ...

• Word Count: 560
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs, which put forth his revolutionary idea that the Sun was at the center of the universe, opposing the popularly accepted understanding of the geocentric universe embodied by the natural philosophy of Aristotle, the astronomy of Ptolemy and the teachings of the Church that the stationary Earth had the sun and stars revolving around it. ...

• Word Count: 881
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Throughout history, people have always been aware of ever-present truths concerning the world in which they lived. For example, when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, they knew that they were God's chosen people. For thousands of years, all Europeans knew that the earth was flat and that t...

• Word Count: 1974
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate