Albert Einstein

In 1905 German-born American physicist Albert Einstein published his first paper outlining the theory of
relativity. It was ignored by most of the scientific community. In 1916 he published his second major paper
on relativity, which altered mankinds fundamental concepts of space and time.
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Microsoft Encarta 2008. 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Socrates
Socrates (shown here in a copy of a bust originally attributed to the Greek sculptor Lysippus) was a Greek
philosopher and teacher who lived in Athens, Greece, in the 400s bc. He profoundly altered Western
philosophical thought through his influence on his most famous pupil, Plato, who passed on Socratess
teachings in his writings known as dialogues. Socrates taught that every person has full knowledge of
ultimate truth contained within the soul and needs only to be spurred to conscious reflection in order to
become aware of it. His criticism of injustice in Athenian society led to his prosecution and a death
sentence for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens.
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Plato
Plato, one of the most famous philosophers of ancient Greece, was the first to use the term philosophy,
which means love of knowledge. Born around 428 bc, Plato investigated a wide range of topics. Chief
among his ideas was the theory of forms, which proposed that objects in the physical world merely
resemble perfect forms in the ideal world, and that only these perfect forms can be the object of true
knowledge. The goal of the philosopher, according to Plato, is to know the perfect forms and to instruct
others in that knowledge.
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Aristotle
A student of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Aristotle shared his teachers reverence for human
knowledge but revised many of Platos ideas by emphasizing methods rooted in observation and
experience. Aristotle surveyed and systematized nearly all the extant branches of knowledge and provided
the first ordered accounts of biology, psychology, physics, and literary theory. In addition, Aristotle
invented the field known as formal logic, pioneered zoology, and addressed virtually every major
philosophical problem known during his time. Known to medieval intellectuals as simply the Philosopher,
Aristotle is possibly the greatest thinker in Western history and, historically, perhaps the single greatest
influence on Western intellectual development.
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Saint Thomas Aquinas

During the 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas sought to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with
Augustinian theology. Aquinas employed both reason and faith in the study of metaphysics, moral
philosophy, and religion. While Aquinas accepted the existence of God on faith, he offered five proofs of
Gods existence to support such a belief.
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Microsoft Encarta 2008. 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Galileo Facing the Inquisition

This painting from the 19th century depicts Italian scientist Galileo at the Vatican in Rome in the 17th
century. Galileo was forced to stand trial for his belief in Copernicanism, or the idea that Earth moves
around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to publicly denounce Copernicanism and spend
the the rest of his life under house arrest.
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Immanuel Kant
Eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant explored the possibilities of what reason can tell
about the world of experience. In his critiques of science, morality, and art, Kant attempted to derive
universal rules to which, he claimed, every rational person should subscribe. In Critique of Pure Reason
(1781), Kant argued that people cannot understand the nature of the things in the universe, but they can
be rationally certain of what they experience themselves. Within this realm of experience, fundamental
notions such as space and time are certain.
Hulton Deutsch

Microsoft Encarta 2008. 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

John Locke
English philosopher John Locke was a founder of empiricism, a school of philosophy based on the belief
that knowledge comes from everyday experience, scientific observation, and common sense, rather than
from the application of reason alone. Lockes Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) portrays
each individual as a blank slate. The persons experiences become notations on the slate and make each
individual distinct from other people.
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Roger Bacon
English philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon was a major advocate of experimental science during the
13th century. Bacon was condemned and imprisoned for his beliefs.
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Renaissance Science
During the Renaissance, Belgian physician Andreas Vesalius experimented with the dissection of human
cadavers in order to learn more about human anatomy. The spirit of curiosity and experimentation that
characterized the Renaissance created a fertile climate for the development of science. Advances were
made in many fields including navigation, astronomy, mathematics and medicine.
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William Harvey Explains Blood Circulation

A groundbreaking work in the history of medicine, English physician William Harveys Anatomical Essay on
the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals named the heart as the organ responsible for pumping
blood. Although criticized when first published in 1628, Harveys work was soon accepted by scientists and
laid the groundwork for modern physiology.
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Galileos Telescopes
Italian astronomer Galileo made major discoveries about celestial objects in our solar system with newlyinvented telescopes in the early 17th century. His discoveries helped turn cosmology into a science based

on observation, rather than philosophy. These telescopes are now in the Museo della Scienza in Florence,
Italy.
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Nicolaus Copernicus
Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionized science by postulating that the Earth and other
planets revolve about a stationary Sun. Copernicus drew inspiration from classical sources, but embodied
the spirit of curiosity and experimentation that characterized the Renaissance approach to science.
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Copernican Model
In the 16th century Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the Sun was at the center of the
universe instead of the Earth. This heliocentric (Sun-centered) model challenged assumptions held since
the 2nd century when astronomer Ptolemy proposed a geocentric (Earth-centered) model of the universe
that was used by astronomers and religious thinkers for many centuries. The Copernican model gradually
gained acceptance because it provided better explanations for observed astronomical phenomena.
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Johannes Kepler
The contributions of German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler dramatically increased
scientists understanding of planetary motion; Isaac Newton drew upon Keplers work in formulating his
theory of gravitation. Kepler also made detailed studies of a supernova.
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Sir Francis Bacon

Widely considered the most influential and versatile English writer of the 17th century, Sir Francis Bacon
addressed a broad range of topics in his works, including ethics, philosophy, science, law, and history. He
also enjoyed a long political career.
Hulton Deutsch

Microsoft Encarta 2008. 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Ren Descartes

Ren Descartes rational examination of knowledge fomented the modern era of philosophy. He argued
that reason, especially in the form of mathematics and science, explains the workings of the physical
world. In Meditations on the First Philosophy, Descartes extended his rational inquiry to metaphysics and
offered a proof of Gods existence based on reason, not faith.
Hulton Deutsch

Microsoft Encarta 2008. 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton derived the law of universal gravitation, invented the branch of mathematics called
calculus, and performed important experiments dealing with the nature of light and color. The idea that
people could unlock the secrets of the natural world helped to bring about the Age of Enlightenment.
Reason and education earned a higher status than religion in the society that emerged from this new age.
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Science, systematic study of anything that can be examined, tested, and verified. The
word science is derived from the Latin word scire, meaning to know. From its early
beginnings, science has developed into one of the greatest and most influential fields of
human endeavor. Today different branches of science investigate almost everything that
can be observed or detected, and science as a whole shapes the way we understand the
universe, our planet, ourselves, and other living things.
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reserved.
Science develops through objective analysis, instead of through personal belief.
Knowledge gained in science accumulates as time goes by, building on work performed
earlier. Some of this knowledgesuch as our understanding of numbersstretches back
to the time of ancient civilizations, when scientific thought first began. Other scientific
knowledgesuch as our understanding of genes that cause cancer or of quarks (the
smallest known building block of matter)dates back less than 50 years. However, in all
fields of science, old or new, researchers use the same systematic approach, known as the
scientific method, to add to what is known.
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reserved.

Athenian Empire
Athens dominated the Greek city-states in the 5th century bc, leading the Delian League and counting
other city-states as allies. Rival Sparta led the smaller Spartan Confederacy. The two sides fought in the
Peloponnesian War (431-404 bc), and Athens lost, leaving it temporarily weakened.
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