Key Figures
Inventions
Science and Enlightenment
100

He developed the heliocentric theory

Who is Nicolaus Copernicus

100

Instrument invented in Netherlands in 1808 to make distant objects appear closer, containing an arrangement of lenses or curved mirrors.

What is the telescope

100

This American statesman was a founding father ... and experimented with electricity

Who is Benjamin Franklin?

200

He improved the telescope, described the path of projectiles, found out that the moon’s surface is rough and uneven, discovered 4 moons around Jupiter, and was threatened with torture.

Who is Galileo Galilei

200

An instrument invented in Netherlands in 1590, used for looking at very small objects, typically magnified several hundred times.

What is the microscope

200

The "father of empigricism," this English philosopher argued for using inductive reasoning.

Who is Francis Bacon?

300

He developed the laws of gravitation and the three laws of motion

Who is Isaac Newton

300

Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel built the first one of these that could navigate underwater in 1620.

What is the submarine

300

He said "I think, therefore I am"... and also developed the coordinate system you still use to graph in math class

Who is Rene Descartes?

400

He added good math to Brahe's work to develop the laws of planetary motion: the Laws of Orbits, Areas, and Periods

Who is Johannes Kepler?

400

An instrument for measuring atmospheric pressue invented by Evangelista Torricelli in 1643

What is the barometer

400

He said we live in "the best of all possible worlds" ... and invented calculus at the same time as Isaac Newton ... and invented an early calulator.

Who is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz?