Galileo and Newton: The Birth of Modern Science
The Birth of Modern Science: Galileo and Newton
The form of knowledge that we call science has a relatively short history. It was Galileo who was aware, by the time of creating a “new” scienza (science).
Copernicus and Galileo were not only unique, but their discoveries, which designed a new method of knowledge, implied a completely different understanding of reality.
The beginning of any such mechanism leaves behind Platonic animism and finalism as forms of relating to the world, to enter into *mathematized* experiments and data. The process of discussion with Galileo shows Aristotelianism at the time being replaced by the new science, albeit cautiously, as Galileo was careful in his claims to preserve his life.
While Kepler had developed mathematical astronomy, Galileo was completing his studies with movement, acceleration, and inertia.
Galileo’s Contribution to the Scientific Method
Galileo’s great contribution lies in this new consideration of nature (materialized) and knowledge (understood as the physical-mathematical assumptions of science that are checked prior to submitting nature to preconceived experiments). A new concept of scientific experimentation was designed. The implementation uses the scientific method completely: the purpose, assumptions, and even checks are conceived in mathematical terms.
- First, scientists draw from nature those facts that are constant, quantifiable, and measurable, which can be translated into mathematical terms. For this reason, they are objective and unquestionable. These data are the primary qualities of objects (surface, volume, weight), the only ones that interest science, and are universal and necessary. The secondary qualities (color, taste) depend on the observer and are, therefore, random and subjective, concrete and contingent. This distinction is based on a mechanistic conception of nature.
- Secondly, scientific inquiry was related to prior assumptions, mathematically conceived, and set *a priori* to reality. These hypotheses, once confirmed by experience (or an experiment) using calculations, become universal laws.
These elements establish the experimental method. The scientist poses a problem for study, makes a hypothesis whereby the chaos of sensitive data that can be quantified is observed, and constitutes essential elements of a phenomenon that allow establishing the hypothesis and drawing theoretical implications. Finally, experimental verification confirms or rejects the hypothesis. If valid, it shall apply to all similar phenomena.
From Philosophy of Nature to Mechanistic Science
Galileo transformed the ancient philosophy of nature into mechanistic science, achieving physical unity between celestial and terrestrial physics. The lifeless universe was seen as a whole unit linked to its laws, with nature reduced to mathematical data and subject to general principles that science can describe as a true reality. Nothing is left of animism, and the Platonic view that Aristotle had brought to the Renaissance—essences, qualities, and substantial forms—have disappeared.
Newton’s Unification: The Law of Gravity
The three laws of Kepler and Galileo’s works are justified by Newton’s law of gravity, solving all the enigmas that knowledge had raised for centuries, homogenizing nature and theories into a single unified discipline: Mechanics.
Newton accepts Galileo’s experimental method and emphasizes *mathematization*, the formulation of hypotheses derived from observation and experimentation (not merely “speculative assumptions”), and the generalization of principles.