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    Dhhedh

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    Mess Matos
    The document discusses how Nicolaus Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the universe to explain irregularities in planetary motion, challenging the established geocentric view. Galileo later provided evidence supporting Copernicus' model by observing phases of Venus and moons orbiting Jupiter. Johannes Kepler then formulated laws of planetary motion that further supported the heliocentric theory and turned it into a dynamic model with the Sun pushing planets in elliptical orbits.

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    Dhhedh

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    Mess Matos
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    The document discusses how Nicolaus Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the universe to explain irregularities in planetary motion, challenging the established geocentric view. Galileo later provided evidence supporting Copernicus' model by observing phases of Venus and moons orbiting Jupiter. Johannes Kepler then formulated laws of planetary motion that further supported the heliocentric theory and turned it into a dynamic model with the Sun pushing planets in elliptical orbits.

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    The document discusses how Nicolaus Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the universe to explain irregularities in planetary motion, challenging the established geocentric view. Galileo later provided evidence supporting Copernicus' model by observing phases of Venus and moons orbiting Jupiter. Johannes Kepler then formulated laws of planetary motion that further supported the heliocentric theory and turned it into a dynamic model with the Sun pushing planets in elliptical orbits.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    10 views2 pages

    Dhhedh

    Uploaded by

    Mess Matos
    The document discusses how Nicolaus Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the universe to explain irregularities in planetary motion, challenging the established geocentric view. Galileo later provided evidence supporting Copernicus' model by observing phases of Venus and moons orbiting Jupiter. Johannes Kepler then formulated laws of planetary motion that further supported the heliocentric theory and turned it into a dynamic model with the Sun pushing planets in elliptical orbits.

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    Through the centuries close observations had shown that the heavens do not always appear to move-in

    perpect, interrupted circles. Rather, they sometimes seem to move backwards in what are known as
    retrogradations. In order to account for these irregularities, astronomers did not do away with
    Aristotle's theory of perfectly circular orbits around the earth. Instead, they expanded upon it, adding
    smaller circular orbits (epicycles) that spun off the main orbits. These more or less accounted for the
    retrogradations seen in orbits. Each time a new irregularity was observed, a new epicycle was added

    The Copernican Revolution

    The view of geocentric universe could not answers


    irregularities of the movement of the earth, until the early sixteenth
    century when the Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, develop a
    different model. According to him, the apparent movement of the heavens
    was an illusion, caused by the movement of the observer. He went on to
    argue that the wandering motion of the planets could be explained if they
    were orbiting the sun rather than the earth. This led to heliocentric
    theory that the earth was itself just another planet orbiting the sun.

    Being a distinguished churchman, Copernicus knew how


    tenaciously it held geocentric theory. In proposing heliocentric theory, he
    was not just challenging orthodox science; he was challenging the
    established religious view of reality, which in those days held even greater
    sway than the scientific view. So, fearing the wrath of the church, he kept
    his ideas to himself for thirty years. Only as he was nearing death, he
    finally decided to publish his book On the Revolutions of the Celestial
    Spheres ( this is the start of scientific revolution) but it was immediately
    placed on the list of forbidden books.

    After eighty years, an Italian scientist Galileo Galilei took up an


    interest in planetary motions. Utilizing the newly invented telescope, he
    found convincing evidence in favor of the Copernican model. He saw that Venus had phases, just like the
    moon, when only half, or just a crescent, of
    it would be lit, which is what would happen if Venus orbited the sun. He
    also found that Jupiter had its own moons in orbit around it, dispelling
    the idea that everything went around the earth. Under threat of torture,
    he was forced to detest the absurd view that the earth moves around the sun. He was then put under
    house-arrest so that he could be watched and remained there till his death.

    A German mathematician, Johannes Kepler, put into place another key piece of the puzzle. He
    formulated three major laws of
    planetary motion, conventionally designated as follows: (1) the planets move in elliptical orbits with the
    Sun at one focus; (2) the time necessary to traverse any arc of a planetary orbit is proportional to the
    area of the
    sector between the central body and that arc; and (3) there is an exact relationship between the squares
    of the planets’ periodic times and the cubes of the radii of their orbits.

    Kepler himself did not call these discoveries “laws,” as would become customary after Isaac Newton
    derived his mathematical description of gravity for planetary motion. He regarded them as celestial
    harmonies that reflected God’s design for the universe. Kepler and Newton’s discoveries turned
    Nicolaus Copernicus’s Suncentred system into a dynamic universe, with the Sun actively pushing the
    planets around in noncircular orbits.

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