What was science like in the 17th century

So it seems that at long last the principle of freedom of worship began to be allowed in practice if not always officially. From this undulating sea of opinion, belief, judgment, doubt and attitude there did indeed seem to grow among the people a conviction that time would produce increasingly enlightened generations of people and improved world conditions with each generation.

This indomitable spirit did much to usher in the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century. If the 17th Century represented the third trimester of a birthing process then surely our infant burst from the womb during the 18th Century into a bright new environment that could and would support the rapid growth of a world in an infancy that was frantically striving to take its first steps toward adulthood. At this point I would like to delve into what I consider some lasting effects that were spawned from the magnificent 17th Century and to examine some results that arose from the interactions the science which grew from the 17th Century and left human trails across the sands of time.

The cumulative increase in all forms of knowledge across both the 17th and the 18th centuries fed through technological advances the accumulation of wealth in Western societies. A positive feedback system developed between scientific and technical information acquisition and the accumulation of wealth in that an increase in one supported an increase in the other. The partnership of basic science, in the form of discovery, with the science of application and the business world was born and this mutual relationship has continued across the millennia.

In fact, those States which have led the world in science and its application seem to have embarked, since the 18th Century, upon a never-ending mission to advance "progress" as defined primarily by the accumulation of wealth and the acquisition of technology. It has been well documented that within the Western countries science fueled the agricultural revolution, which laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution, which necessarily went before the post-industrial Information Age now predicated by the Biotech Century.

While the economy may have fueled these "advancements", it has been the engine of science that has pulled the cart. It seems the process of discovery and its resulting applications have been critical to each and every developmental stage of society since the 17th Century. History will record that, along our developmental path as a global community, science and technology played a dominant role toward creating a divided planet; the technohaves and the technohave-nots.

We must ask ourselves if it is sufficiently appropriate for the god of Science to allow one culture or State to lord it over another equally valid but developmentally different culture. Jared Diamond , trained as a bird evolutionist and an accomplished researcher within the field, has gained remarkable insight into the cultures and lives of hominids during his extensive research travels.

Diamond purports there to be no greater genius residing with any one race as opposed to any other. He adeptly explains that technology acquisition is a cultural icon that will allow or discourage its own use along various paths. The technology that is most useful for the individual culture is utilized while others, despite any intrinsic properties for future use, will likely be discarded. Another of Diamond's remarkable insights suggests that hunter-gather societies became communal societies complete with laws and governance only when physical space necessitated frequent interaction.

Extrapolating from this principle, we may make the application that, courtesy of advanced technology, cultures are now also forced into frequent interaction. From this illustration we should realize the direction that globalization is taking us; that it is here to stay. We as individuals, and as societies, will have to deal with it if for no other reason than our backyards now join. Our territories or national boundaries join not because the world has physically gotten smaller but because of improved science and technology within the realms of communications, computers, and travel.

From these advancements we have developed global economies, politics, health care concerns, and threatening environmental problems Scholte, Six billion people now claim our earth as home and, at least currently, there is nowhere else to go. Like it or not, we are all members of a global society and every nation is a member State in a global community. As previously illustrated, the accumulated knowledge harvested from scientific procedure and utilized through the genius of application for the benefit of the individual or the species has contributed immeasurably to the current level of sophistication achieved by humankind.

Unfortunately science can be a double-edged sword capable of great good or great evil and may be swung maliciously or with beneficence and these consequential cuts, in both directions, may be made, under the guise of some other intention or even unknowingly.

It should be evident that with each progressive step into new territory there are and will continue to be new problems crying out for resolution. Consequently the ladder of success, progress, and advancement that is often attributed to science is strewn with the refuse of its application.

Is it our nature, our lack of insight or our greed, that precludes our fixing problems at the front end of a given technological process or procedure? For example, within the environmental realm even our vast knowledge base concerning ecological cycles that are absolutely critical to the proper functioning of our planet has not yet prevented us from exploiting our planet for individual or national advantage.

Fueled by the fires of the almighty economy and a human desire for convenience, the technological subsidy of our species has created a formidable list of problems that have progressed rapidly, in the context of our history, to worldwide scale.

Global warming, atmospheric accumulation of ozone, stratospheric depletion of ozone, desertification, acid rain, air and water pollution, and a loss of biodiversity that surpasses anything ever witnessed on earth represent tribulations that have followed human ascendancy to the role of planet earth's undisputed physical sovereign. Are we as a species, however, a despotic monarch?

At the risk of becoming too anthropomorphic I will nevertheless ask this question "Have we so repressively subjugated our environment that it too will rebel as humans have always risen against self-centered and egotistical tyrants? What has brought us to this man-made precipice?

We clearly can follow a trail across history that leads us to the 17th Century where crystallization of the techniques of science provided the means to go after our needs and our wants with uncanny and surgical precision. Suddenly nothing seemed beyond the grasp of the one made in the image of the Creator. But is it science itself that brought us to this stage in our development? And to go back to our early analogy, at what point in our development have we come to as a species?

Are we still floundering in adolescence or have we doomed ourselves through our great capacity for invention to an early senescence? Has this facility for invention outpaced our capability for discipline or our application of ethics and morality? Are we capable in our humanity of managing our planetary domicile? There are as many opinions which answer these questions as there are experts.

As explained so eloquently by Mary Clark in her book Ariadne's Thread , some have adopted the Cassandra approach and just as the daughter of the King of Troy in ecstatic trance prophesied the doom of the city so they proclaim our certain demise.

Others, who have received the 17th Century baton of an unfailing trust in science as the answer to all of our problems, believe that science will rescue us from the horrors of our current dilemma. Theirs, per Clark's use of Elenor Porter's novel character, is the ever wistful stance that Pollyanna took. It seems ironic that the very thing that was discarded by so many with the rise of science could have proven to be the antidote for humanities' misbehavior, i.

To quote a popular song of my youth written by Barry McGuire "I don't believe we are on the eve of destruction". I believe humankind has the answer to the global problems we have created, has had it for ages, and we are in hot pursuit of it within Christian higher education. As Christian academicians and educators I trust we can make a difference in this world by educating young men and women who understand the grief it brings to those of other cultures when they learn the Western world has sole access and control of the lion's share of the world's resources.

The same page shows other notation used and popularized by Harriot, in particular the use of lower case letters, and the convention of writing ab for a times b. We believe this copy of Praxis was purchased for the Library in the seventeenth century.

Like NN. John Seller, Atlas coelestis: containing the systems and theoryes of the planets the constellations of the starrs. And other phenomina's of the heavens with nessesary tables relateing thereto, John Seller is one of the most important figures in the early history of cartography trade in England.

He published a celestial atlas, two terrestrial atlases, a sea-atlas, several coasting pilots, as well as a large number of separately-issued charts. In addition, he also published number of navigation handbooks, almanacs, pocket books, miniature sea-atlases, and made a variety of mathematical and navigational instruments and tools. It is interesting that Pythagorean science was still being taught in Oxford in the s while, at a similar time in another part of the University, natural philosophers such as Boyle and Hooke were meeting to establish the Royal Society, which moved our understanding of the natural world on from its Greek roots to the beginnings of modern experimental science.

It is not clear how this book came to the Library but it bears the names of two previous eighteenth century owners, William Whitton and Thomas Jones. The Principia is justly regarded as a world changing book. During the scientific revolution it was one of the most important works in both physics and applied mathematics, a book that transformed society and its views of nature. This edition was published in Oxford in Boyle, one of the founders of the Royal Society, is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and one of the pioneers of the modern experimental scientific method.

For him chemistry was the science of the composition of substances, not merely an adjunct to the arts of the alchemist or the physician. The book was given to the Library by Theophilus Metcalfe in the mids.

The Metcalfe collection comprises over one thousand volumes and consists mainly of medical works but also includes chemical and alchemical books such as the one on display. The beginnings of the Royal Society can be traced to around when a group of scientists, among them Robert Boyle, John Wallis and Christopher Wren began to hold regular meetings in both London and Oxford. The common theme among these scientists was the acquisition of knowledge through experimental investigation.

The period of political and economic uncertainty at the end of the Civil War and during the Protectorate delayed the formal foundation of the Society, the official inaugural meeting of which took place on Wednesday 28 November , after the restoration of Charles II. Philosophical Transactions is the first professional scientific journal in the world. Like the Hariot displayed above there is evidence of a chain staple on the front board and the book was therefore kept in the Upper Library, which was a chained library for the first hundred years of its life.

William Harvey, The anatomical exercises of Dr. But science and numbers are not the only truth; and the senses are limited. There are also revelation, intuition, impulse—the mind and the heart. Wisdom lies in knowing the place and limits of all these. Rene Descartes reasoned that God is perfect and infinite.

Therefore, the finite, imperfect mind of man could not have dreamed Him up out of thin air. God created man and endowed him with both matter and mind, which are the distinct constituents of reality.

Rene Descartes went to Sweden to teach Queen Christina during the winter. He stayed in an icy palace, caught pneumonia, and passed away. Simon Stevin was Flemish. He published Table of Interest Rates in , which may seem common to us but to people in his time interest rates were mysterious and understood only by bankers, who kept them secret and guarded them as valuable property.

But, the greatest invention of Simon Stevin was the metric system, which introduced the word "decimal" into our language in Simon Stevin demonstrated in his booklet The Tenth how his system would simplify math for merchants and their customers; for bankers and their borrowers.

He suggested the decimal system be used for all weights and measures and coinage, as well as divisions of time and degrees of the arc of a circle. Stevin showed the advantage of using decimals for surveying, measuring cloth and wine casks, for the work of astronomers and mint masters. He went so far as to recommend soldiers be grouped in 10s, s, s, and so on.

Simon Stevin wanted to make mathematics the Latin of the scientific community, so that, like Latin, it would overleap vernacular barriers. Simon Stevin put forth a convincing case that his system would universalize measurements worldwide, facilitate trade, and provide a common method of calculation and measurement for science.

The measurements of the day were mostly based on body parts. Among these, the "cubit" is the space between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger; the "fathom" the distance between the outstretched arms. Then there was the "furlong," established on the average length of a furrow: yards.

That is the reason that a mile is 5, feet: It is eight furlongs. In the 19th century, the French would implement the basic idea of Simon Stevin, by establishing the "meter" from the Greek word for measure as one-ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole; with all other distances smaller or larger based on the meter expressed in multiples of ten.

Johannes Kepler lived in a time when astronomy and astrology were conjoined. Johannes Kepler, born in Germany, was a devout Christian a passionate Lutheran who was motivated to study science by his belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light God granted human beings: the power to reason.

Johannes Kepler believed that the world was created by a Creator who used geometry to establish order and harmony, and that this harmony could be explained through musical terms.

He wrote that he revealed God's geometrical plan for the universe. Theology was the first love of Johannes Kepler. He savored the delights of the heavenly salad and went in search of God's recipe. He wrote: "I believe Divine Providence intervened so that by chance I obtained what I could never obtain by my own efforts. I believe this all the more because I have constantly prayed to God that I might succeed. The mentor to Kepler, Tycho Brahe, bequeathed the voluminous records of his research on his deathbed to Kepler.

These documents were to provide the foundation Kepler used to prove that the planets orbit the sun in ellipses, and that the speed of the planets depends upon their distance from the sun.

The father of Johannes Kepler was a mercenary who left the family when Johannes was five years old. The mother of Johannes Kepler once served a fourteen month prison term for practicing witchcraft. Johannes Kepler authored his own epitaph: "I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure; Skybound was the mind, earthbound the body rests.

He founded the modern science of metabolism—the study of transformations that are the processes of life. Cornelius Drebbel was a Dutch illusionist and opera designer.

He also may be the greatest inventor you have never heard of. Drebbel invented the first navigable submarine; the mercury thermometer; the thermostat; the air-conditioner; and a perpetual-motion machine. He moved to England when he was 32 years old, and there he remained for the rest of his days.

His submarine was tested by King James I of England, which makes him the first monarch to travel underwater. Drebbel also built microscopes and telescopes, and is credited with making great improvements to both. Marin Mersenne is the very model of the new man of science we find in 17th century Christendom. He is mostly known today as the "Father of Acoustics. Mersenne attended Jesuit schools before he studied theology at the Sorbonne in Paris.

He then joined the Franciscan Order of Minims. His personal charm made his monastery the center for science in Paris; and he helped make Paris the intellectual center of Europe. The work of Marin Mersenne is primarily about music theory and musical instruments. More important in the history of science is that he was at the center of a network of mathematicians dedicated to the exchange of ideas, discoveries, and knowledge.

Mersenne believed the discoveries of science confirmed the truths of the Christian faith. The Montmor Academy was founded in , also in Paris, with the express purpose to discover "the clearer knowledge of the works of God. Giovanni Borelli was a physicist and mathematician from Naples, whose chief work focused on the movements of living creatures. Borelli discovered the physics involved in the movements of the limbs while lifting, walking, running, jumping, and skating—locomotion.

He went on to explain that the same laws of physics applied to the movements in animals of their wings, fins, and legs. He is the man who discovered the structure and function of our lungs—the process of respiration: to replenish the blood with oxygen. Malpighi also discovered the taste buds on our tongues, the pigmentary layer of our skin, and that the brain is an organ.

Queen Christina of Sweden was a virgin queen who loved political intrigue. At birth she was covered with hair, and so was at first mistaken for a boy. She later said that she thanked God she was born with a man's soul in a woman's body. Queen Christina was uncommonly strong, loved to ride unruly horses, and was an avid hunter. She viewed women with contempt. Christina became the queen at the age of six when her father the King was killed in battle.

Her father had commanded that she be brought up as a prince, not a princess. At her coronation, she took the oath of a King, not that of a Queen. The Sweden of Christina's day ruled the Baltic region. She was a Lutheran who spoke five languages including Latin. Queen Christina became a great patron of science.

Pascal dedicated his invention of the calculating machine to her. Queen Christina of Sweden gave up her throne at the age of 28—so she could convert to Catholicism—and moved to Rome. The papal city was alive with poets, musicians, thinkers, and talkers. Christina was given a wing at the Vatican to live in.

She made the rounds of elegant dinners, dances, plays, masques, ballets, and conversations. Christina befriended the great baroque sculptor and architect Bernini. She also founded three academies for the arts and sciences. Christina was the most famous woman in all the world during her lifetime.

The terms" Middle Ages" and "Medieval" were first used in the 17th century. The idea was that "modern" men were proud of their discoveries and progress and thus wished to set themselves apart from the previous "centuries of ignorance. Truthfully, there have always been learned men and remarkable discoveries. Look at the awesome workmanship, sound design, and solidity that is obvious in the bridges, houses, and churches built in the Middle Ages.

We cannot today duplicate the carvings, stone dressings, and stained glass with all of our "progress. It is in vogue today to talk of olden times as oppressive to women. That would have been a surprise to them. Women ruled kingdoms, duchies, and counties long before modernity. They also managed huge households and sprawling estates. And they were worshiped by men—hence the wonderful history of poetry about women in Christendom.

A lot of propaganda has been marketed by feminists in their pursuit of the destruction of Western Civilization. The Middle Ages gave us chivalry —and notions of honor. Modern romantic love still uses Medieval terms derived from the Christian faith to address the objects of our love: You are my angel; you are divine; when I am with you I am in heaven.

Women were put on a pedestal by most men in Christendom. Men were physically strong, very well armed, and there were no police in those days. If mistreating women was the aim of men why is there no record of routine rape of women in Christendom? Men of the Middle Ages certainly could have raped and killed women at will. I dare say that women are more objectified today than they were then. They were respected and their unique qualities widely admired and lauded. To suppose that since antiquity women have been uniformly oppressed, and treated as chattel by their husbands, is utter nonsense that truly diminishes womanhood by negating their innate powers of intelligence, self-respect, and resourcefulness.

I appreciate this visitation from you. Jei Han— You are quite welcome! Thank you for the compliment. I am glad you found this article to be useful. I appreciate the visit and your comments. I thought there was an English law to that effect and I am surprised that it is a myth. I am happy that you enjoyed my work on this Hub. I sincerely appreciate the affirmation and encouragement.

Thank you and you are welcome. I submit to your judgment as to the crassness and barbarity of medieval men. Perhaps my Hub overly romanticized the conditions of the middle ages. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors.

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