Pierre Duhem

"Pierre Duhem's meticulous nature had lead him to information about medieval physicists that demanded that a second look be taken at science in the middle ages. It also meant that the popular view of conflict between church and science might have to be revisited. Duhem had discovered that important advances in the science of mechanics had occured in the middle ages. And he could support his discoveries by quoting directly from passages in the original documents. In effect, he had discovered elements of "modern physics" in the Middle Ages. He even showed that Galileo had read their work [_2_] . This was a clear challenge to the status quo. The historians of the day looked upon the Middle Ages as a period where nothing of importance in the natural sciences was learned." [1]