This course focuses on the “Scientific Revolution”, a crucial period in intellectual history. The first part of the course concerns the introduction of Copernican astronomy and the subsequent controversy over this heliocentric view that culminated in the trial and condemnation of Galileo in 1633. This part of the course will include the role-playing game, The Trial of Galileo: Aristotelianism, the ‘New Cosmology’, and the Catholic Church, 1616-1633, which is part of the “Reacting to the Past” series. Students will play the role of historical individuals involved in the so-called “Galileo Affair", thereby coming to appreciate “from the inside” the various philosophical, theological, and political factors involved in this pivotal historical event. The second part of the course concerns the development after Galileo of a new physics that came to be known as the “mechanical philosophy”. The focus here will be on Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton (along with Newton’s defender, Clarke). We end with a consideration of the original synthesis of the views of Leibniz and Newton in the work of Émilie du Châtelet. Our goal throughout is to understand the transition during this important period from a cosmology and physics based on the views of the ancients to a more “modern” outlook in these disciplines.