Breakthroughs in Astronomy and Medicine in the 16th and 17th Centuries

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Breakthroughs in Astronomy and Medicine in the 16th and 17th Centuries

It was during the 16th and 17th centuries when man's view of the unvierse and himself

changed drastically. This came after a millenium of repetition and stagnation in the

development of science. People finally began questioning what they were told, and they

went out to find proof rather than assuming on the basis of authority and common sense.

These advances in astronomy and medicine came about in the same era, and were not

unparallel in their development. In both fields were some very notable people who

contributed greatly to the devolopment in these areas. In the field of astronomy

Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo shed Aristotle's, Plato's, and Ptolemy's views of

the universe. In medicine Paraclesus, Vesalius, and Harvey did away with Galen's

ancient practices.

Ancient Greeks believed that the Earth was stationary, they concluded this by making some basic obsevations. One being that the Earth cannot be part of the 'heavens'

because celestial bodies are bright points of light, whereas the Earth is a nonluminous

sphere of mud and rock. Also in the heavens there is very little change, the same stars are there night after night, only five planets, the sun, and the moon. On Earth however things are constantly changing and reforming. Their senses also told them that the Earth wasn't moving. They believed that the air, the clouds, and the birds would all be left behind if the Earth spinning around, therefore it couldn't be moving. Also if the Earth were spinning everything would fly off due to the centrifugal force. It was thought that with all this evidence there was no way that the Earth could be moving.

There were however a few descrepencies in this Earth stationary or geocentric view. The most apparent being the five planets. They moved unlike anything else, they moved contrary to the stars and occasionaly went backwards. Ptolemy was able to correct this by the use of epicycles. This said that not only do planets orbit the Earth, but

they also have smaller circular moton which they perform during their orbit. This did

solve the problem, but it was still imperfect and very complicated, it was un-Godlike.

Nicolaus Copernicus believed in the heliocentric model of the universe. It was his

belief that the sun was a copy of God, God gave us life and the sun kept us alive.

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