Overview

During the 1500s, Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) proposed that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa. Copernicus's view was seen as a challenge to widely held beliefs about the universe. These beliefs, however, were based on traditional interpretations of the Bible rather than on scientific observations. The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) defended Copernicus's ideas in 1632. In the process, he helped to promote the idea that science should be based on experiment and observation as opposed to faith or reasoning alone. This way of approaching science came to be known as the scientific method and had a great impact on the physical scientists of the 1700s.

The eighteenth century is often referred to as the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. Scientists stopped relying on untested ideas in ancient texts and began conducting their own experiments and making...