Free 17th Century Discoveries Essay Sample
The 17th century was the time when the development of science and its thoughts resulted. It came as a time when there was interrelationship between science and inventions whereby, human activities advanced due to the application of science. Science was like a force in the development of humankind whence the scientists were able to gather and analyze the work of the previous scientists and use their solutions to the problems. The scientists adequately formulated and tested hypotheses through the discovery. A lot of discoveries and advancements were experienced during this period. There are some scholars who contributed a lot to the development and advancement in science during this period.
Kepler is one of the great scientists and is associated with the discovery of the laws of planet motion. Most of the information about planets was gathered when he was working as an assistant to Tycho Brahe. He also began tabulating the Rudolphine tables, which involves a star catalogue and a planetary table. He published a book that laid emphasis on the optical theory, which is now referred to as the basis of modern optics. Kepler improved Galileo’s telescope that comprised two convex lenses instead of the combination of convex and concave lenses to attain higher magnification. In 1619, he published Harmonices Mundi which elaborated his third law of planetary motion. He completed the Rudolphine Tables in 1623, which were finally published in 1627.
Kepler designed a telescope by using two convex lenses which became very successful and it is now called astronomical telescope. His work has been supposedly to have an element of non-rational. This was because he was a Christian whereby understanding the universe incorporates understanding its creator’s nature. His character was not welcomed by his second wife. He was consulted in 1611 by the politicians when the political-religious tension rose in Prague.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was an English philosopher who was regarded as being most original and very influential theorist (Newton, 9). Newton changed the universe by his law of gravity. He was among the key contributors to scientific discoveries in the 17th century.
He came up with the theory of infinitesimal calculus, generalized binomial theorem, Newton’s identities, and Newton’s method and happened to be the first to use coordinate geometry. In the period between the years 1670-1672, he demonstrated that a prism was capable to split white light into spectrum and that the lens as well as other prism could reverse the process. He generated the Newton’s theory of color and the three laws of motion, which contributed a lot in the industrial revolution. He was made internationally known by the Principia and penned religious tracks in 1690. According to him gravity cannot state the initiator of the motion of planets but rather, the motion of the planets.
His discoveries were used by English deists in showing the possibility of Natural Religion. He is attributed with the bringing down of the world conception to human reason level, but he was criticized for putting occult agencies into science. Newton is still influential to current scientists as shown by Britain’s Royal society survey. Newton was the greatest genius as quoted by Joseph-Louis Lagrange. In a nutshell, Sir Isaac Newton is very enigmatic today as he was to himself.
These two scientists greatly changed the thinking of their time through their logic discoveries. The discoveries are believed to have improved the way of life and the way of doing things in those years.