Great Minds in Science by Kelly Chen

1473-1543 Nicolas Copernicus

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:03:29 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 planet revolve around the Sun (heliocentric theory) in his De Revoltionibus orbium coelestium (ON the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, completed 1530)

1561-1626 Francis Bacon

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:07:22 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.

1514-1564 Andreas Vesalius

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:10:32 UTC

Andreas Veslius was a Belgian physician and anatomist. In his De humanity corporis fabrica librium septem ( Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body, 1543) he describes the human anatomy more accurately than the classical Greek scientist Galen (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

1564-1642 Galileo Galilei

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:13:39 UTC

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

1578-1657 William Harvey

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:15:54 UTC

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

1571-1630 Johannes Kepler

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:18:47 UTC

Johannes Kepler is a German mathematician and astronomer. Accepts the heliocentric theory after examining data gathered by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). His Astronomia nova (New Astronomy, 1609) and De Harmonice mundi (Harmonies of the World, 1619) explain that the orbits of the planets are elliptical and not circular as Copernicus has suggested

1596-1650 Rene Descartes

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:23:07 UTC

Rene Descartes is a French philosoper and mathematician. Develops analytic geometry and other mathematical techniques useful in theoretical science. He believesss that mathematical rpoof is the model for rational scientific inquiry. His best known philosopical work, Meditationes de prima philosphhia (Meditations on First Philosopy, 1641), emphasizes the importance of accepting only indubitable evidence

1629-1693 Christiaan Heygens

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:25:53 UTC

Christiaan Heygens is a Dutch physicist and astronomer. He proposes the wave theory of light, discoveres the rings of Saturn, and builds the first reliable prendulum clock (originally an idea of Galileo's)

1627-1691 Robert Boyle

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:28:44 UTC

Robert Boyle is a Irish physicist and chemist. He investiagtes 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

1632-1723 Anton van Leeuwenhoek

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:30:04 UTC

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

1642-1727 Issac Newton

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:34:24 UTC

Issac Newton is a English physicist and mathematician. One of the greatest theoretical scientists in hisotry. He discovered the law of gravitation after studying Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and formulates three laws of motionw which form the basis of physics until the 20th century (called Newtonian mechanics). Also invents the reflecting telescope (uses a curved mirror. to focus light), and develops the mathematical system known as calculus. Best known work is Philosophiae naturalis principia Mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687)

1743-1784 Antoine Lavoisier

6kche626 — 2025-05-20 16:36:47 UTC

Antoine Lavoisier is a French chemist. In Traite elementary de chimie (Elementry Treatise on Chemistry, 1789) he describes the constituent gasses of air (calling the two most sigificant, oxygen and nitrogen), and shows the combustion can only take place in the presense of oxygren. Develops the modern system for naming chemical compounds and proposes that matter is never destroyed in chemical reactions (Law of Conservation of Matter