Novum Organum

The Novum Organum, full original title Novum Organum Scientiarum (new instrument of
science), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title
is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic andsyllogism. In Novum
Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of
syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.
For Bacon, finding the essence of a thing was a simple process of reduction, and the use
of inductive reasoning. In finding the cause of a phenomenal nature such as heat, one must list all
of the situations where heat is found. Then another list should be drawn up, listing situations that are
similar to those of the first list except for the lack of heat. A third table lists situations where heat can
vary. The form nature, or cause, of heat must be that which is common to all instances in the first
table, is lacking from all instances of the second table and varies by degree in instances of the third
table.
The title page of Novum Organum depicts a galleon passing between the mythical Pillars of
Hercules that stand either side of the Strait of Gibraltar, marking the exit from the well-charted waters
of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean. The Pillars, as the boundary of the Mediterranean,
have been smashed through opening a new world for exploration. Bacon hopes that empirical
investigation will, similarly, smash the old scientific ideas and lead to greater understanding of the
world and heavens.
The Latin tag across the bottom Multi pertransibunt & augebitur scientia is taken
from Daniel 12:4. It means: "Many will travel and knowledge will be increased".

Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban,[1][a] QC (/bekn/; 22 January 1561 9 April 1626), was an
English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, essayist, and author. He served both
as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely
influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific
method during the scientific revolution.

Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[4] His works established and
popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or
simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural
marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still
surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.
Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St. Alban in 1621;
[b]

as he died without heirs, bothpeerages became extinct upon his death. He died of pneumonia,

supposedly contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

Ren Descartes
Ren Descartes (/dekrt/;[5] French: [ne dekat]; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; adjectival form:
"Cartesian";[6] 31 March 1596 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician and
writer who spent most of his life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the father of modern
philosophy, and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings,[7][8] which are
studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a
standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is
equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system allowing reference to a point in space as a set
of numbers, and allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a twodimensional coordinate system (and conversely, shapes to be described as equations) was
named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and
geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus andanalysis. Descartes was also one of
the key figures in the scientific revolution and has been described as an example of genius. He
refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers, and refused to trust his own senses.
Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of
the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the early modern version of what are now commonly
called emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic "as if no one had
written on these matters before". Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in
late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers
like Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differs from the schools on two major points: First, he
rejects the splitting of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal
to final endsdivine or naturalin explaining natural phenomena.[9] In his theology, he insists on the
absolute freedom of God's act of creation.

Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch
Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting
of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in
mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as
well.
His best known philosophical statement is "Cogito ergo sum" (French: Je pense, donc je suis; I
think, therefore I am), found in part IV of Discourse on the Method (1637 written in French but with
inclusion of "Cogito ergo sum") and 7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (1644 written in Latin).

Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (/njutn/;[8] 25 December 1642 20 March 1726/7[1]) was an
English physicist and mathematician(described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is
widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in
the scientific revolution. His book Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical
mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried
Leibniz for the development of calculus.
Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated
scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler's laws of
planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to
account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other
phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the Solar
System. This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies
could be described by the same principles. His prediction that Earth should be shaped as an oblate
spheroid was later vindicated by the measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others,
which helped convince most Continental European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian
mechanics over the earlier system of Descartes.
Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the
observation that a prismdecomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He
formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of
a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the

study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed
a method for approximating theroots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves.
Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member
of the Cambridge faculty of the day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England,
perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Beyond his work on the
mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of biblical
chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after
his death. In his later life, Newton became president of the Royal Society. Newton served the British
government as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint.

Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [alilo alili]; 15 February 1564[3] 8 January 1642), often
known mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer,
and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolutionduring the Renaissance. His
achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations
and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational
astronomy",[4] the "father of modernphysics",[5][6] the "father of science",[6][7] and "the father of modern
science".[8]
His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of
Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his
honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and
technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.
Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, a time when most
subscribed to either geocentrism or theTychonic system.[9] He met with opposition from astronomers,
who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[9] The matter was
investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was false and
contrary to scripture, placing works advocating the Copernican system on the index of banned
books and forbidding Galileo from advocating heliocentrism.[9][10] Galileo later defended his views
in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII,
thus alienating not only the Pope but also the Jesuits, both of whom had supported Galileo up until

this point.[9] He was tried by the Holy Office, then found "vehemently suspect of heresy", was forced
to recant, and spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest. [11][12] It was while Galileo was
under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he
summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now
called kinematics and strength of materials.