Revolution

The Scientific Revolution
Galileo´s work come during a period that historians now call the Scientific Revolution. From the mid-1500s through the mid-1700s, scientists made many significantdiscoveries in several different sciences. In 1543, Andreas Vesalius, a Flemish doctor, produced the first manual that used detailed pictures to show the structure of the human body. William Harvey, an Englishdoctor, discovered that human heart Works like a pump and the blood is returned to the heart after it circulates through the body.
Beginning in 1637, the French philosopher René Descartes began topublich books proposing a system for geometry. He also used letters of the alphabet in math equations and analyzed how light was reflected from a mirror. His studies led to the development of analyticgeometry. Descartes also proposed the idea that mathematics was perfect model for reasoning in all of the sciences.
Robert Boyle, an Irish chemist, disaproved the centuries-old idea that all matterwas made of a combination of four things: air, wáter, earth, and fire. Boyle argued in the late1600s that matter was made up of a more complex combination of chemicals. Boyle´s work bécame thefundation of modern chemistry.
In the mid-1700s, the British scientist Sir Isaac Newton studies the motion of the planets and objects on the earth. His theories about natural laws, or the patterns thatcontrol the behavior of the universo, included the laws of motion and gravity. These laws explain everything from why a rock rolls down a hill to the way the Earth revolves around the sun. His studieshelped explain some problems with the theories that Galileo had proposed a century earlier, but still upheld their basic principles.
These scientific discoveries and many others changed the way thatpeople understood the world around them. People began to believe that science and reason could improve their lives. Although some of the explanations were later proven worng, the dedication of these...