The Scientific Revolution: From Aristotelian Cosmos to Modern Physics

Introduction to the Scientific Revolution

A. The Paradigm Shift

The origin of modern science is rooted in the Renaissance Scientific Revolution. This revolution began prominently in astronomy, where Copernicus initiated the transition from the old view to the modern one.

Contrasting Cosmological Views

The shift involved moving away from the Aristotelian model:

• Aristotelian View: Held that the cosmos was a finite, closed unit consisting of two worlds: the sublunary and supralunar. These worlds were subject to different laws and composed of different elements and compounds.
• Modern View: Maintains that the cosmos is an open, perhaps infinite, set, consisting of the same basic components, governed by the same laws, and the Earth is only one element of this immense whole.

This shift in perception caused a radical change in the conceptual basis of the sciences and necessitated a revision of physics. As a result, a new way of looking at, researching, and explaining reality emerged. This led, overall, to a change in the method of scientific research, originating what Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift.

Factors Weakening the Aristotelian System

Throughout the modern age, other factors contributed to this paradigm change. Among these factors, we must highlight the problematic facts that weakened the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system.

Comets, celestial bodies subject to generation and corruption and whose movement is far from uniformly circular, were problematic events even in ancient times. Aristotle himself had solved this problem by stating that comets resided in the sublunary world. Since it was not possible at that time to accurately estimate the position of comets, the Aristotelian thesis remained credible.

Tycho Brahe and the Comet of 1577

In the sixteenth century, Tycho Brahe triangulated the bright comet of 1577, establishing its position night after night and comparing his data with those reported by astronomers from other parts of Europe on the same dates. If the comet had been close (in the sublunary sphere), the change in perspective caused by the different locations of the observers would have revealed a parallax difference relative to the background stars. However, Tycho found no such difference: the comet was beyond the Moon. The same conclusions were obtained with the observations of the two great supernovae of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

B. Changes in Scientific Method

In short, this change was represented by the abandonment of explanations based on abstract concepts and their replacement by:

1. Observation
2. Measurement
3. Experiment
4. Mathematics

These were established as the only path leading to an explanation of natural phenomena.