SCIENCE OF ARISTOTLE,

COPERNICUS, GALILEO,
DESCARTES, EINSTEIN.
 An empiricist to the core.
 His father was the medical doctor to the
king.
 He was interested in Biology.
 He was a student of Plato.
 His method of inquiry was deduction.
 His research in Biology was more of
observation.
 In his astronomy he arranged the
planets according to their rotation
periods – the moon taking the shortest
time and Saturn requiring the longest
period.
 His speculation was the Unmoved
Mover being responsible for planetary
movements .
 In physics, he speculated that the
ultimate source of all things in the
universe is Prime Matter which is a
combination of air, water, fire and earth.
 He postulated that fire moves vertically
into the air while water moves
horizontally and changes to earth.
 His theory of causality stated four stages:
 Material cause - the source of all objects
(primary matter),
 Formal cause - patterns, designs and forms
on the object,
 Efficient cause – the inbuilt process that
actualizes the form of an object,
 Final cause - signifies the purpose of an
object.
 Passive (inorganic) and active
(organic) life exists in nature.
The transition from one to the
other is the presence of soul.
 He postulated that soul and body
cannot exist separately.
 He studied Politics, Finance,
Religion.
 He was an ordained clergy.

 He postulated that the sun is at

the centre of the universe, not the
earth.
 He was against Aristotle’s science that
was cosmological and mechanistic.
 Challenges faced in engineering
prompted his research in mechanics.
 The challenge with flight of objects
prompted his studies on the fall of
objects side by side gravitational pull.
 He used the telescope in viewing the
moon and Jupiter extensively.
 He was a rationalist, he approved the
application of mathematical
deductions.
 He combined induction and deduction
methods in studying the universe.
 He was a Roman Catholic, but his books
were banned by the Church.
 He is called the father of modern science.
 He was a rationalist, he systematized analytic
geometry.
 His research was focused at evolving a
science based on mathematics and physics
with which the universe can be studied and
understood.
 He succeeded in merging geometry,
arithmetic and algebra, making it a single
subject.
 His contribution to Physics is that analytic
geometry is adequate in describing
everything in the world.
 He postulated the non existence of atoms.
 He debunked the existence of vacuum, void
in the universe.
 He evolved calculus as adequate in
formulating laws explaining the movement of
objects.
 He approved the method of induction
resulting from experience and observation of
physical phenomena.
 The English favoured Descartes' postulations
while the French agreed with those of
Newton.
 A German Jew, he postulated the
theory of relativity.
 His theory earned him his Ph.D in
1905.
 He won a Nobel prize in 1921.

 His theory states that time depends

on whether a thing is at rest or on
motion.
 When at rest, time for two persons will
be the same, but when on motion it will
be affected by space.
 His theory introduced relativism into
other subject areas again such as ethics,
politics, etc. and contended with the
existence of absolutes.
Quantum mechanics.