Top 10 People from the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment
1. Nicholas Copernicus
2. Tycho Brahe
3. Johannes Kepler
4. Isaac Newton
5. Francis Bacon
6. John Locke
7. Voltaire
8. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
9. Immanuel Kant
10. Catherine the Great
- Nicholas Copernicus was a Polish cleric who was especially famous for his Copernican Hypothesis and a key contributor in the scientific revolution.
- 1473-1543
- He inspired the idea of Heliocentrism, and his Copernican Hypothesis had scientific and religious reactions that both opened up many new opportunities and realizations and led to his condemnation.
2. Tycho Brahe
- Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer and nobleman and was known for his extensive observations and notation of the stars and planets.
- 1546-1601
- Brahe’s extremely detailed notes and observations led to him being responsible for assisting Kepler’s laws of planetary motion; he also is known for his Tychonic system.
3. Johannes Kepler
- Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer who was an assistant to Tycho Brahe, and developed the laws of planetary motion.
- 1571-1630
- Kepler is known for developing the laws of planetary motion from Brahe’s observations and also was able to mathematically prove Copernicus’s theories, where Copernicus had only hypothesized and speculated; he also made horoscopes when he was a court mathematician.
4. Isaac Newton
- Isaac Newton was an English scientist, astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician who was a major player in the scientific revolution who made a lot of new laws and theories.
- 1642-1727
- Newton combined the experimental and theoretical views of modern science, developed the law of universal gravitation, the ideas of force and acceleration, and summarized his laws of motion in his famous work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
5. Francis Bacon
- Francis Bacon was an English philosopher from England.
- 1561-1626
- Francis Bacon was known for developing the new experimental/scientific method, the “Father” of inductive thinking and he also stressed that experimentation is used to reach the truth or answer.
6. John Locke
- John Locke was an English philosopher during the Enlightenment, well known for writing Two Treaties on Civil Government and Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
- 1632-1704
- John Locke’s writing contributed to sensationalism, he developed the “Tabula Rasa” idea, and provided systematic justification on Bacon’s view on the importance of observation and experimentation; “life, liberty, and property!”
7. Voltaire
- Voltaire, whose real name was Francois Marie Arouet, was a French philosophe who didn’t believe in social equality, religious intolerance, and was deistic.
- 1694-1778
- Voltaire influenced and advocated for civil liberties, was famous for writing Candide, and was the most representative of the French philosophes.
8. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss philosopher who was in a group of philosophers that began to attack some of the Enlightenment’s basic views.
- 1712-1778
- Rousseau believed in individual freedom and did not agree with rationalism; he’s very famous for writing The Social Contract, which was his political theory.
9. Immanuel Kant
- Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who wrote about philosophy and anthropology.
- 1724-1804
- Kant was famous for answering the question of the definition of enlightenment as “dare to know!” advocated for freedom of speech, introduced transcendentalism, the categorical imperative, and Deontology.
10. Catherine the Great
- Catherine the Great was the queen of Russia; she inherited the throne from her husband Peter III and was well known for her success in expansion.
- 1729-1796
- Catherine the Great continued to westernize Russia, improved the law code, and vastly expanded Russia; her reforms were aborted by rebellion from a Cossack soldier.