The French philosopher Rene Descartes argued that beliefs should not be based solely on faith, but instead on observations of what is going on in the natural world. These ideas influenced the development of the Scientific Method for experimentation. Scientists base their conclusions on what actually happens in the experiment, and not on what they expected to happen prior to the experiment.

Isaac Newton was one of the most important scientists in human history. Among other discoveries, his formulation of the Theory of Gravity helped to explain why the planets orbit the sun and why objects fall to the Earth. Discoveries in genetics, or how living organisms inherit traits from their parents, would not be mad until a few centuries after Newton's death.

The main reason that Himalayan art uses more embossing than casting is because embossing is cheaper.

Economic considerations, not spiritual ones, were the main reasons why Himalayan art was more often embossed, rather than casted.

Casting technology has existed in the Himalayans for thousands of years, long before the modern era and the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Himalayas' altitude does not make metal casting impossible.

Caravels are sailing ships that were invented by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Caravels had the advantage of being able to sail both with and against the wind, were small and extremely maneuverable, and could make accurate voyages over vast distances. The invention of the caravel paved the way for the age of European exploration.

The Heliocentric Model of the Universe states that the sun, and not the earth as was previously thought, lies at the centre of the solar system. The Heliocentric Model of the Universe is generally credited to the astronomer Copernicus. Indeed, the adoption of the Heliocentric Model is often called the Copernican Revolution.

The Scientific Revolution was a slow, gradual accumulation of new discoveries, different schools of thought, and changed approaches to the universe. Despite its name, it did not actually take place at a fast rate; instead, it transformed Western Europe slowly but steadily over the course of two centuries, from the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century. The individuals who took part in this Revolution were not actually called scientists; at the time, the word “scientist” hadn’t yet been invented. Instead, they were known as “natural philosophers,” or men who studied and thought about the universe, Nature, and everything in between. Contrary to popular belief, the Scientific Revolution didn’t reject the teachings of antiquity and the Middle Ages at all. In fact, the Revolution’s natural philosophers were inspired by the concepts created by those (such as Aristotle and Ptolemy) who had come before them. These new natural philosophers embraced the work done by their predecessors and worked to update, reform, or fix any errors in these ideas. They married old information with new knowledge and discoveries, combining and investigating them both to expand their understanding of the universe. The many new discoveries and changes made in the field of astronomy generated the most excitement and drama among the Revolution’s contemporary researchers and academics. But many other fields, including medicine, biology, chemistry, and natural history, produced fascinating achievements as well.

In 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published his work On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, which today is regarded by most historians as the starting point for the Scientific Revolution. In this piece, Copernicus challenged the ancient scientific worldview of geocentrism, which had been established by Aristotle and Ptolemy centuries earlier. According to geocentrism, the Sun revolved around the Earth, because the Earth, with its superior weight, was the natural center of the universe. Copernicus, however, had discovered that the real truth was just the opposite – in fact, the Earth revolved around the Sun. Copernicus’s model, known as heliocentrism, was hugely important because he provided a perfect beginning for the deep exploration of astronomy and other natural sciences that occurred over the entire course of the Scientific Revolution. Yet Copernicus was not at all a radical scientist; while his heliocentrism did indeed disprove Aristotle and Ptolemy’s geocentrism, Copernicus did not reject any of the ancient thinkers’ other astronomical principles. In his mind, Copernicus was simply correctly a flawed ancient model by proposing an alternate understanding of that same model. It would not be until many years later that Copernicus would begin to be celebrated as a revolutionary, transformative intellectual, a view which modern historians now generally regard as overly generous.

Crucial to the later success of the famed scientist Sir Isaac Newton was the work done years earlier by Johannes Kepler. A German astronomer, Kepler lived and worked during the Scientific Revolution’s beginning. At first, he was simply a research assistant to the more famed astronomer Tycho Brahe, who was an ardent proponent of geocentrism and conducted vast numbers of observations of the planets, all without any equipment. All the data Brahe gathered over the course of his hundreds of observations would later become an invaluable database used by nearly every astronomer who followed after him. But Brahe completely rejected Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the universe. However, Kepler believed that Copernicus was right, and after Brahe died in 1601, Kepler took over his boss’s work. He immediately set out to investigate heliocentrism more deeply, hoping to prove Copernicus right and his old mentor wrong. In the process, Kepler discovered a crucial, and previously missing, piece of information about the universe: he found that the planets moved in elliptical orbits, not the circular ones that Copernicus and Brahe had both claimed. Kepler’s discovery of accurate planetary motion laid the groundwork for the later studies done by Isaac Newton, who directly relied upon Kepler’s findings to inspire and inform his own research.

Among his many other claims to fame, the Italian mathematician, inventor, and astronomer Galileo Galilei was the very first person to examine the skies, planets, and stars up close and personal by using a telescope. The telescope was a brand new invention, one created by Dutch eye-doctor and inventor Hans Lippershey in 1603. With his telescope, Galileo made numerous discoveries – new stars, moons, and never-before-seen features such as mountains on planets all were revealed before Galileo’s tireless eyes.

Galileo Galilei, in addition to being a truly innovative mathematician and scientist, was also just as outspoken and ambitious as he was brilliant. He wanted to share his new discoveries and theories with as many people as possible, especially the political and social elites of his day. His many writings, including his Starry Messenger and Letter on Sunspots, were written in such a way that his ideas, while obviously complex, were nonetheless more accessible and available to the average person than were the works written by nearly all of his other fellow scientists. His prose brought him to the attention of the infamous Medici family, who agreed to become his patrons and employed him as an astronomer, mathematician, and natural philosopher for many years. Over the course of his time with the Medicis, Galileo gained significant political skills and connections, with he used to further popularize his ideas. Galileo was an especially fervent proponent of the deceased astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and his heliocentric model. Eventually, it was this eye-catching combination of high level political associations, dramatic new theories, and unashamed bluntness that drew Galileo into conflict with the Catholic Church. He was not, however, an atheist, merely a Christian whose views were not directly in line with those of the church.