Anyone who has taken some philosophy knows that Aristotle takes two or three reads before you actually understand what he is saying. That is because he assigned different meanings to some of the more ambiguous terms in the English language, such as being. Similarly to translations of Aristotle, we have two seemingly opposing ideas of the meaning of the word revolution. On one hand, we have the revolutions of planets, which orbit in the same oval shape every day and change very subtly over huge time scales. This definition implies little to no change, or rather, continuation. The other understanding we have of the word revolution is periods of great change, be that of societies, governments, knowledge, or all three. The French Revolution overthrew the long-standing monarchy and created a republic. The American Revolution severed colonial relations with the British Empire and created a new, independent nation. This use of revolution does not imply a continuation, but rather, a progressive step in the forward direction. The two definitions of revolution have more in common than they seem to on the surface, and this is revealed by aspects of the Scientific Revolution, and how it can be understood from both ideas of what a revolution is.
The Scientific Revolution was the beginning of a new era for the human race. The great thinkers of the Scientific Revolution invented modern science, and created a competition between medieval and modern ideas. The modern ideas won, and western society was placed on a track to become the leader in the scientific understanding of the world as well as the leader in technological development. But what is funny about the scientific revolution is that many of the discoveries had already been discovered by some civilization in the past. In fact, at this point in time, multiple ancient civilizations had already compiled a great wealth of scientific knowledge that was later destroyed in war. Examples include empires of the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire.
So how is the Scientific Revolution any different from other times that a great wealth of knowledge was discovered and documented? Well, for one, there has been no great erasing of loss of the knowledge gained during the scientific knowledge and it has only been built off of. Secondly, after enough time, the scientific revolution caused an international agreement of what science is and how it is conducted. So on one hand, the scientific revolution is similar to planetary revolutions. We made the same circle as a human race that we had before, a great discover of the natural laws that govern our world and universe. But on the other hand, the conditions of this particular revolution were fit so that the knowledge gained would be preserved and improved on and still are today. Perhaps the use of revolution in the Scientific Revolution is as a metaphor for the patterns of history. While we understand history as a straight line with forward and backward, we can also stand history as a series of recurring patterns that happen in different eras. This type of understanding of history could be useful in guiding us into future and solving the newest problems of humanity, which may be modern versions of problems in that occurred in the past.