The Clockwork Universe

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick, HarperCollins, 2011. 

Before the Age of Reason,

people thought in the old ways:

• natural disasters, plagues and fires were punishment from God for sinning,

• astrology,

• comets were bad omens

• curiosity was a sin (according to St. Augustine)

• religious dissenters were punished

• inanimate matter had goals

• great chain of being

• the Bible was full of hidden meanings

• God controlled all events on Earth

Notable figures in the Age of Reason:

• Isaac Newton

• Gottfried Leibniz

• René Descartes

• William Harvey

• Robert Hooke

• Francis Bacon

• Galileo

• Nicolaus Colpernicus

• Tycho Brahe

• Johannes Kepler

• Antonio van Leeuwenhoek

• Robert Boyle

• Christopher Wren