7.5.2 Video 在线视频

7.5 Science and culture in the 17th century

1. After the end of the Renaissance period, the 17th century Europe witnessed a new intellectual revolution: the Scientific Revolution. It was a series of events that marked the emergence and development of modern science including mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry. The explanation of the universe and the natural world by Aristotle became questionable. The main characteristics of the Science Revolution are materialistic and mathematical. This revolution was supported by kings and noblemen. Royal observatories and laboratories were created. In 1662 the English Royal Society was established and in 1666 the French academy of Science was established.

2. Nicolaus Copernicus1473 –1543. In 1543 in Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire, Copernicus's book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was published just before his death. It was written in Latin. This event was considered the beginning of the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. He was a mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe.

Aristotle believed that the sun, moon and planets are all faultless spheres and immune from decay, the earth is at the center of the Great Chain of Being. This view was called heliocentrism. Copernicus challenged this view. "At rest, in the middle of everything is the sun". "For in this most beautiful temple who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time". His view was called geo-centrism.

3. Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) was a Danish nobleman and astronomer. Supported by the king of Demark he built a large observatory. He has been described as "the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts." His observations were five times more accurate than the best available observations at the time. He believed that all planets but the earth revolved around the sun and the sun revolved around a fixed earth.

Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630) was Brahe’s student, a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. Astrologer is someone who predicts the future by the positions of the planets and sun and moon. At that time there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology. Kepler discovered that planets orbited the sun in an elliptical rather than a circular path. An ellipse is an oval or egg shape similar to a circle but longer and flatter. He believed that the solar system was heliocentric and that the heavens, like the earth were made of matter and followed the physical laws. This provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation. In physics, gravitation is the force which causes objects to be attracted towards each other because they have mass.

4. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer. He has been called the "father of observational astronomy", "father of modern physics", "father of the scientific method" and "father of modern science". Galileo studied speed, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion. With a telescope he created he discovered four moons of Jupiter, and spots on the sun. His greatest contribution was his popularization of the Copernican theory. The Roman Catholic Church tried him and forced him to recant his views and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

5. Giordano Bruno (1548 –1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist. He was a supporter of Copernicus, and proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets, and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own. Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary. In 1600 the Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned at the stake in a public square called "field of flowers" in Rome. He died as a martyr for truth and science. We can see there is a statue of Bruno there.

6. Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer and theologian, and natural philosopher, professor at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He was also a FRS, Fellow of the Royal Society, and a PRS, president of the Royal Society. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time, the most important figure in the scientific revolution. The publication of his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy simply called Principia in 1687 was considered the completion of the Scientific Revolution. It was a work in three books written in Latin. The work formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation thereby completing the synthesis of a new cosmology. Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. Voltaire wrote "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."

He was a devout, but unorthodox Christian who privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England.

Let Plato be your friend, and Aristotle, but more let your friend be truth. Many people in China thought this is the school motto of the Harvard University. It is not. It is a sentence written by Newton. I think it is very inspiring.

7. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher and statesman, who served as Attorney General, and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. He was one of the leading supporters of scientific research, proposed a scientific method through inductive, empirical experimentation. His works remained influential through the scientific revolution.

Look at these two quotes from Bacon: Knowledge is power. Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

8. The Baroque is a highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the early 18th century. The word Baroque derived from the Portuguese barroco, meaning “oddly shaped pearl,” The style started from Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, Austria and southern Germany, mainly the Catholic counties. It was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of the Protestant architecture, art and music. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, rich and lively decorative detail, deep color, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe, awe is an overwhelming feeling of wonder and admiration.

9. Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577 – 1640) is considered the most influential Baroque painter. He was a Flemish. The Flemish is a Germanic ethnic group native to Flanders, in modern Belgium. Rubens emphasized movement, color, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation.

This is his famous Descent from the Cross

10. Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect, the most important Baroque sculptor. His influence to sculpture is compared with that Shakespeare to drama. This is Bernini's most famous work, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Ecstasy is a feeling of very great happiness. Teresa was a Spanish Catholic nun. During her illness he believed god came to her. "I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart; he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain...

11. William Shakespeare (1564 –1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor, the greatest poet and dramatist in the world. He is called England's national poet. He wrote 39 plays, 154 sonnets. His famous 4 tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. And 4 comedies: The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream; Twelfth Night, the Tempest, The Merchant of Venice. Let’s read Hamlet’s Monologue: "To be, or not to be, that is the question ". And "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how expressive and admirable! In action how like an Angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! "

12. This is the Sonnet18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Let’s listen to the music.

13. Baroque music is a period or style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed by the Classical era. Three piece of Baroque music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 –1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, most famous for his instrumental works such as the Brandenburg Concertos and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. what we just listened the first one is Air on the G String from the second movement in Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major

14. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was a German, later British composer who spent the most of his career in London, well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. He is regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, famous for Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks. What we just listen second part is Hallelujah. Hallelujah means praise to god.

And Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) was an Italian composer, violinist and priest. Born in Venice, he was one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments. His most famous work is the Four Seasons, a series of violin concertos. What we just listen to was the last part called Winter.

15. Key words: the Scientific Revolution, Nicolaus Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, The Baroque, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Sonnet18.

16. Questions of this chapter:

1, How the Thirty Years War changed Europe? 2, How the English Revolution happened and ended?  3, Give some best examples of the Baroque art.