Great Minds in Science by Alina Thai

1473- 1543 Nicolas Copernicus

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:17:21 UTC

Nicolas Copernicus is a polish priest and mathematician. He denies the medieval belief, inherited from the classical Greek astronomer Ptolemy (c. 90-168), that the Earth is the center of the universe, and develops the revolutionary theory that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun (heliocentric theory) in his De Revoltionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, completed 1530).

1642 - 1727 Issac Newton

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:17:34 UTC

Issac Newton, a Belgian physician and anatomist. In his De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (Seven Books on the Structure of the Human body, 1543) he describes human anatomy more accurately than the classical Greek scientist Halen (c. 130-201), whose works have been the standard reference throughout medieval Europe. His work brings a sentence of death from the Inquisition (Catholic Church tribunal) for immorality, but he is not executed.

1514-1564 Andreas Vesalius

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:40:56 UTC

Andrea Vesalius is a Belgian physician and anatomist. In his De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (Seven Books on the Structure of the Human body, 1543) he describes human anatomy more accurately than the classical Greek scientist Halen (c. 130-201), whose works have been the standard reference throughout medieval Europe. His work brings a sentence of death from the Inquisition (Catholic Church tribunal) for immorality, but he is not executed.

1561 - 1626 Francis Bacon

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:44:17 UTC

Francis Bacon is an English philosopher. His Novum Organum (1620) stresses the importance of proper scientific method: theories must be supported by proof acquired by experimentation and observation.

1564 - 1642 Galileo Galilei

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:46:37 UTC

Galileo Galilei is a Italian mathematician and scientist. The first to use telescopes for astronomy. He describes the surface of the Moon and the rotation of the moons of Jupiter. Also established basic laws of motion from experimentation. He is arrested by the Inquisition and forced to recant the endorsement of the heliocentric theory made in his Dialogo dei due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632)

1571 - 1630 Johannes Kepler

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:49:09 UTC

Johannes Kepler is a German mathematician and astronomer. Accepts the heliocentric theory after examining data gathered by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1604). His Astronomia nova (New Astronomy, 1609) and De Harmonice mundi (Harmonies of the World, 1619) explain that the orbits of the planet are elliptical and not circular as Copermicus has suggested.

1596-1650 René Descartes

6atha628 — 2025-05-20 15:51:09 UTC

René Descartes is a French philosopher and mathematician. Develops analytic geometry and other mathematical techniques useful in theoretical science. He believes that mathematical proof is the model for rational scientific inquiry. His best know philosophical for, Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations of First Philosophy, 1641), emphasizes the importance of accepting only indubitable evidence.

1578 - 1657: William Harvey

6atha628 — 2025-05-21 04:22:48 UTC

William Harvey, English physician and anatomist. He discovers the circulation of the blood and describes the purpose of arteries, veins, and the heart in De motu cords et sanguinis in animalibus (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, 1628)

1627 - 1691 Robert Boyle

6atha628 — 2025-05-21 04:31:22 UTC

Robert Boyle is a Irish physicist and chemist. He investigates the properties of air and develops a theory describing the relationship between the pressure and volume of gasses (known as Boyle's Law). In The Sceptical Chemist (1661) he questions the accepted belief that the world is made up of just four elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) and argues that they can be broken down into more fundamental, chemical elements.

1629 - 1693 Christian Huygens

6atha628 — 2025-05-21 04:41:24 UTC

Christian Huygens, Dutch physicist and astronomer. He proposes the wave theory of light, discovers the rings of Saturn, and builds the first reliable pendulum clock (originally an idea of Galileo's)

1632 - 1723 Anton van Leeuwenhoek

6atha628 — 2025-05-21 04:43:54 UTC

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch biologist. He designs a powerful microscope and uses it to describe bacteria, protozoa, spermatozoa, and Blood corpuscles.

1743 - 1794 Antonie Lavoisier

6atha628 — 2025-05-21 04:46:57 UTC

Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist.

In Traite elementaire de chimie

(Elementary Treatise on Chemistry,

1789) he describes the constituent gasses of air (calling the two most significant, oxygen and nitrogen), and shows that combustion can only take place in the presence of oxygen. Develops the modern system for naming chemical compounds and proposes that matter is never destroyed in chemical reactions (Laws of

Conservation of Matter)