The History Page

Important Announcement

The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More

Who was the greatest scientist of the Scientific Revolution?

I'm going to introduce the Scientific Revolution to my 7th graders soon. One of the things they will be required to do is decide who they believe was the greatest scientist from the Scientific Revolution. Some of the people they will examine are Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo.

As a mere UK member may I express my appreciation of your courteous approach, while Management (US) are in their sweaty little sacks, taking advantage of the time difference.

As a Brit, may I ask what is a seventh grader.? Is it edible? Do you use it for flattening road beds?

Copernicus and Galileo are definitely out, because they had some perverted theories that the earth is round. Obviously they don't have glass in their windows. More so, Galileo had some arguments with the Inquisition. Not a good example of respect for authority which is a keystone of infant (if that what a 7th grader is) education.

So it must be Newton,. since (a) he is British and (b) his units are still used in Physics.

At great length, I will be serious, and I would like your comeback before progressing.

Your examples are of theoretical scientists, and not practical ones. None of them actually built a thing. I would like to meet the man who ground Galileo's lenses, who marked scales on Newton's instruments, etc etc.

Discuss in less than 2,000,000 words.

What about Faraday? Is he too late?

"Faraday's discovery (1845) that an intense magnetic field can rotate the plane of polarized light is known today as the Faraday effect. The phenomenon has been used to elucidate molecular structure and has yielded information about galactic magnetic fields."

Robert, he's not too late, but I think he still is too far ahead of his time.

As an arch conservative, I'd rather run with the Phlogiston theory for a few more centuries, and then drop Priestly's and Faraday's stuff in gently.

Faraday was the greatest lab technician - also a Sandemanian. His experiments followed up by Crooks and others are the stuff of Black Ops to this day - mind control use of the Ether.

"I would like to meet the man who ground Galileo's lenses, who marked scales on Newton's instruments, etc etc." (Ref. msg. #2)

You're a man after my own heart, Flashman.

Unfortunately, education in my state is dictated by the "standards." The standards on the Scientific Revolution mentions theoretical scientist between 1500 and 1700. Faraday is 100 years too late according to the standard. Van Leewanhuek was another scientist. He actually ground his own lenses for his microscope.

My students had a debate last week on who they thought was the greatest scientist, but as sometimes happen, we went on a tangent a little bit. The students went off course and had a mock debate on the geocentric and heliocentric theories.

I'm very sorry we couldn't give a more useful answer, mainly because of my amazement that people exist who don't believe the world is flat,

and this contributor, whom none of us could understand:

From: Robert Bruce Baird

Sent: 19/05/2006 16:34

Faraday was the greatest lab technician - also a Sandemanian. His experiments followed up by Crooks and others are the stuff of Black Ops to this day - mind control use of the Ether.

At best. We were honoured to have Robert Baird on site, a soi-disant multi-millionaire and trainer of Nobel prize-winners whom I, for one, found totally incomprehensible.

Are we out of time for this question?

Van Leeuvenhoek (I've been able to copy the spelling from this Google article) was beaten into my somnolent brain as the first person to see bacteria. He obviously didn't participate in my boarding school breakfasts.

(GOOGLE) "Van Leeuwenhoek first encountered magnifying glasses when he was sixteen. He was working in Amsterdam as an apprentice and bookkeeper to a Scottish textile merchant, where magnifying glasses were used to count thread densities for quality control purposes. Aged 20, he returned to Delft and opened as a linen-draper. He prospered, being appointed Chamberlain to the Sheriffs of Delft in 1660, and becoming a surveyor nine years later.

In 1668 van Leeuwenhoek paid his first and only visit to London, where he probably saw a copy of Robert Hooke's Micrographia (published 1665) which was in common circulation at the time, and which included pictures of textiles that would certainly have been of interest to the cloth merchant. In April 1673 he reported his first observations - bee mouthparts and stings, a human louse and a fungus - to the Royal Society, which was published in Philosophical Transactions. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1680 and continued his association, writing hundreds of letters to the Society during his lifetime.

Anyway, do come to us again, if we can help.

Regards

Peter

The greatest scientist?? ...probably Faraday.

...where would we be without electricity, the electric motor and generator? how many things work of those?

Einstein Newton and Copernicus were great scientists but I don't think they had the same direct impact on peoples lives. (Unless you lived in Hiroshima in 1945)

The greatest invention? ......language (or is that an evolutionary development) and the axle. Think about it; axles in motors, generators, engines, all wheels, hinges, compasses etc

I read somewhere that 97% of all inventions have occurred since 1900. But what interests me is inventions arise from inventions.

And inventions often occur because the invented product is affordable. So, lets hear it for machine tools!

Important Announcement The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
The History Page	[email protected]