Chapter XVIII: The Scientific Quest (1648 - 1715)

Part I: The International of Science

• slow move from faith to science
• The Royal Society of London for improving national knowledge
• National boundaries bypassed via published scientific journals

Part II: Mathematics

• improved instruments - barometer, air pump, telescopes, sextant, microscope, thermometer, calculus
• Pierre de Fermat
  • Fermat's last theorem, analytical geometry, calculus of probabilitieis, differential calculus
• Christian Huygens
  • the law of inverse squares for gravity
• Jakob Bernoulli
  • integral calculus, catenary curve
• John Graunt
  • modern statistics which was taken up by insurance companies

Part III: Astronomy

• Riccioli: discovered first double star
• Jean Picard: accurately estimated longitude
• Huygens: new method for creating lenses
• John Flamsteed requested a memorial in Greenwich, which is why we now have Greenwich Mean Time
• Edmun Halley: predicted what is now known as Halley's Comet

Part IV: The Earth

• mapping of trade winds
• first weather stations
• Robert Hooke:
  • wave theory of lights called "micrographia"
• John Woodward: recognition of fossils
• Athanasius Kircher: discovered ocean currents
• geographical mapping of China
• Jean Chardin: effect of climate on culture

Part V: Physics

• Christian Huygens
  • Law of centrifugal force
  • principles of momentum and force
  • conservation of energy
• atmospheric pressure - study of vacuum's
• weight of air
• air as the medium of sound
• Roberty Boyle
  • pneumatic engine
  • light in a vacuum demonstration
  • pressure of gas varies inversely with volume: Boyle's Law
• Robert Hooke
  • improved understanding of heat
• acoustics, studies of vibration and resonance
• light
  • Ole Christensen Rømer demonstrated that light has a speed
  • Francesco Grimaldi phenomenon of diffraction
  • wave theory of light
• some modest advances in electricity
  • Otto von Guericke demonstracted conduction along a wire

Part VI: Chemistry

• Robert Boyle's "Skeptical Chemist" book relied on evidence and observation, it improved the idea of elements including a suggestin of oxygen

Part VII: Technology

• development of the steam engine which catered in the Industrial Revolution, patent by Thomas Savery

Part VIII: Biology

• Robert Hooke
  • demonstrated plants need for air
  • found the cellular structure of life
• classificatins of plants and animals
  • identification of species
  • id of plant genders and reproductive organs
• plant's derive nutrition from the soil
• disproval of abiogenesis
• discovery of single celled organisms, bacteria

hesitation of modern man between a search for truth that smiles at hope and a retreat to hopes that shy from truth

Part IX: Anatomy and Physiology

• lymphatic system
• purpose of pancreas discovered
• anatomy of most organis mapped: eye, reproductive organans, stomach
• nervous system described by Thomas Willis
• Marcello Malpighi found capillaries and thus the full circulatory system
• structure of lungs
• Robert Hooke descovered how air exposed to blood when breathing
• idea of air absorbed into the blood
• idea of soul or vital power still persisted in this age

Part X: Medicine

• Identification and classification of diseases
• Identification of infection and bacteria
• symptoms of disease vs symptoms of immune resonse described
• surgery became more important and professional in this age
• first injections and blood transfusions
• improved and legislated sanitation
• better water supplies

Part XI: Results

• 17th Century was the peak of science

The moder mind ... has been living upon the accumulated capital of ideas provided for it by teh genius of the 17th century

The Royal Society, according ot it's historian, required of it's members "a close, naked, natural way of speaking ... bringing all things as near to mathematical plainness as they can

by the end of this epoch it was already being hailed as the harbinger of utopia and the savior or mankind