The Middle Ages took place from 500-1350 AD and was a time period of trust and ignorance. Christianity began to spread throughout most of Europe between 900-1100 AD. Danes that settled in England, as well as Vikings coming to Normandy accepted the faith of their host countries. “The Norwegian Olaf Trygvesson had taken on Christianity while living in England, and patronized the relig

Technology and the dilution of religion were like the chicken and the egg. They both brought about each other. During the Middle Ages, monks in monasteries were the only ones with the ability to write and disseminate information. This meant that the Church had utmost control over the information that would be presented to the public. They would write whatever the church told them and this is all that would be known by the public, because there was no other contradictory material. The invention of the printing press technology brought about a great power to the people. Now those with new ideas could distribute them just as easily as the monks did. One who used this technology to his advantage was Martin Luther. He created pamphlets explaining that the Catholic Church was taking advantage of their people and they were basically making things up that were never even mentioned in the Bible. A popular example being the traditional indulgences that people paid to the Church to forgive their sins and be admitted into Heaven. Obviously, this was a form of corruption that the Church had elaborately created with one goal in mind, to make money. Martin Luther began to open people’s eyes and bring them a truth that was known as The Protestant Reformation. “The Protestant Reformation, begun by Martin Luther in 1517, radically transformed the theological and political landscape of Europe.”(Spark – The Scientific Revolution 2). At this point many people began to question the teachings of the Church. The Church then developed a Counter-Reformation that accomplished nothing but to lead even more people away from their authority. The censorship that the Church once had over the world was slowly diminishing, giving rise to new thinkers and scientists. With that, the Aristotelian system fell and there were many questions that went unanswered.

Philosophy and science were very closely related during this time period. It took a great thinker to imagine the theories that the scientists would one day prove. Rene Descartes is often referred to as the first modern philosopher. Descartes gripe is with the clarity of scientists’ theories. His famous quote, “I think, therefore I am.”, was the basis of his theories. He was about to publish a book about his theories of nature, when he got word of Galileo’s fate, and gave it a second thought.

Scientific study soon began to examine the heavens. Nicolas Copernicus, an exceptional student of astronomy, discarded the geocentric theory. The geocentric theory was introduced by Ptolemy and stated that the sun orbits the Earth. Nicolas Copernicus was the first to combine mathematics, physics, and cosmology into an approach to his theories. He coined the theory that the galaxy was heliocentric. That is, the sun was the center of the galaxy and the Earth and other planets revolved around it, not only in an orbit for each year but also revolved around an axis for days. He still kept the majority of the laws from the old way of thinking though. He still assumed all heavenly bodies were perfectly spherical. Also, that the universe was spherical and finite, with the end so distant that the motions of bodies were undetectable. Although Copernicus was able to prove his theory he did not publish it for many years after his discoveries, a few months before his death, out of fear of punishment from the Church. If it were not for the Church’s attempt at censorship, his studies may have progressed even further than they did. The next great astronomer was a Dane, named Tycho Brahe. He studied as an astronomer and for many years conducted experiments, funded by the King of Denmark. His experiments were far more extensive than any others before him. He used mathematics to create a flawed but not far off model of the solar system. Tycho Brahe’s model of the solar system used the heliocentric method that was described in Copernicus’ book. In 1584, a man by the name of Gior

Some topics in this essay:
Scientific Revolution, Middle Ages, Thomas Kuhn, Galileo’s Newton, Jesus Christ, Nicolas Copernicus, Church Church, Catholic Church, Leo IX, Urban VIII, scientific revolution, middle ages, aristotelian system, catholic church, solar system, pope leo ix, ages 8, fear church, � middle, leo ix, � scientific, � scientific revolution, � middle ages, middle ages 8, model solar system,