Term Papers on Breakthroughs In Astronomy And Medicine In The 16th And 17th Centuries

Term Paper Title	Breakthroughs In Astronomy And Medicine In The 16th And 17th Centuries
# of Words	927
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.71

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.  This
view was also a lot more aesthetically pleasing, although it was still not perfect.  Most
other people only looked at his work as being a tool and not reality.  This was because
when the book was published an introduction was added saying that the contents weren't
really true.  Also people didn't observe any shift in the stars throughout the year, which
meant the world couldn't be moving around the sun because they should shift when
looked at from different sides of the sun.  Unless o...

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