Scientific Revolution
...ed in models of the universe. However, in presenting his findings so close to his death, he gained little publicity and did not have the effect of revolutionizing human thought, but merely prepared the way for the revolution. Tycho Brahe was an anti-Copernican and sought to prove the Ptolemaic system. Though he failed in that respect, he constructed the most accurate tables of observations of the heavens in centuries. Johannes Kepler came in possession of these tables and strove to find a correlation between Brahe’s tables and the Copernican theory. In 1609 he published his findings in his On the Motion of Mars, combining Brahe’s empirical data with the theories of Copernicus with the addition of elliptical orbits. Galileo took it a step further to present a universe completely subject to mathematical laws in his Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems of the World. The universe became a purely rational and mathematical. Soon everything would be described in terms of math, presenting nature in a cold, rational, mathematical, and mechanistic light. Newton elaborated on his predecessor’s views and reasoned that the orderly motion of the planets came from mutual attraction, or gravity. Newton strongly supported the harmony of mathematics and empirical data. Through his work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, he dispelled the fears of a chaotic universe and asserted the existence of a rational creator. He reasoned that if creation was rational in a mathematical sense, then the Creator must be rational as well. He took it even further to say that in exploring the rationality and mathematical basis of the universe, humankind was getting a better understanding of their Creator. With this, came a world in which science and faith became mutually supporting rather than contradicting as some had viewed it in Galileo’s time. Though this new evidence presented a closer look at the Creator for those Christians that so believed, it provided a different outlook for some. Others felt that in looking rationalizing the universe and the Creator, God became less loving and less near to humankind than before. Now that the belief that God and angel...