The scientific revolution was a fundamental change in the direction of Western thought and scientific practice that may reasonably be said to have begun with the reassertion of heliocentric model of universe advocated by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543 and that culminated with English physicist Sir Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) publication of his profoundly influential 1687 work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). The scientific revolution was not merely a set of discoveries or technical advances, but brought about a fundamental change in the way the laws of nature were investigated. During this time scientists increasingly supplanted pure deduction with experimentation.

Prior to about 1600, science and philosophy in the West for the most part had made only minor advances since the fall of the Roman Empire in the west (ca. 400). Despite significant technical advances in some fields, during this time no systematic inquiries were made into the...