The main achievement of the first part of the scientific revolution was the removal of these five cardinal obstacles. This was done chiefly by three men: Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. After that, the road was open to the Newtonian synthesis; from there on the journey led with rapidly gathering speed to the atomic age. It was the most important turning point in man’s history; and it caused a more radical change in his mode of existence than the acquisition of a third eye or some other biological mutation could have achieved.
