Scientific Revolution

Since [the Scientific R]evolution overturned the authority in science not only of the middle ages but of the ancient world -since it ended not only in the eclipse of scholastic philosophy but in the destruction of Aristotelian physics - it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom. Since it changed the character of men's habitual mental operations even in the conduct of non-material sciences, while transforming the whole diagram of the physical universe and the very texture of human life itself, it looms so large as the real origin both of the modern world and of the modern mentality that our customary periodisation of European history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance. —Herbert Butterfield

Most often referred to as occurring in the Western world roughly between the years 1500 and 1700 CE, the historical period called The Scientific Revolution witnessed progressively greater numbers of people asking questions about the workings of the natural world; discussing, debating, and discovering answers to those questions; and experimenting and finding new ways to find answers both to those questions and the new questions that arise as they do so.