Intellectual Revolution

Intellectual Revolution: The Copernican Revolution
-Ptolemaic model was not seriously challenged until the 15th century during the Renaissance.
-Nicholas Copernicus
(1473-1543) rediscovered the heliocentric model (Aristarchus). He found to his dismay that it
better fit the observed facts than the geocentric model.
Seven points of the Copernican system:
1. The celestial spheres do not have one common center. The Earth is not at the center of
everything.
2. Earth is not the center of the universe, only the center of gravity and the lunar orbit.
Only the Moon orbits Earth.
3. All the spheres orbit the Sun. Spheres means the planets.
4. Compared to the distance to the stars, the Earth to Sun distance is almost nonexistent.
The stars are very much farther away than the Sun.
5. The motion of the stars is due to the Earth rotating on its axis.
6. The motion of the Sun is the result of the Earth’s motions. (rotation and revolution)
7, The retrograde and forward motions of planets is caused by the Earth’s motion.
It is caused by the fact that Earth’s orbit is a different length than the other planets.
The Copernican model was not well accepted by scholars or the public. It violated the
religious teaching of the time. Copernicus’ book
De Revolutionibus was published in 1543 (the year Copernicus died). It included an
anonymous preface that stated that the new model was merely an aid to calculation and
suggested that Copernicus really did not believe it.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Italian mathematician and
philosopher. He performed experiments to test his ideas (a radical idea
then). He is regarded as the father of experimental science. The
telescope was invented in Holland early in the 17th century. Galileo
heard about it and, although never having seen one, made his own in
1609.
The observation of craters and mountains on the

Moon showed that it had terrain like the Earth.
Figure 1the observation of sunspots showed that the Sun

was imperfect and rotating slowly!
with he saw the mountains, valleys, and craters of the Moon; spots on the Sun (which
eventually blinded Galileo); the phases of Venus; and, perhaps most significant: he saw 4 moons
orbiting Jupiter (know the Galilean moons.)
Rema
rk: All these observations suggested that the Ptolemaic model was wrong and the Copernican
model was correct.
Galileo published his findings in Siderius Nuncius (The Starry Messenger) in 1610.This was a very
risky action for Galileo. In 1600 Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for (among
other things) teaching that the Earth orbited the Sun.
In 1616, Copernicus’ works were banned by the Roman Church and Galileo was told to stop
researching and stating such nonsense. Then,Galileo published a new book in 1632: Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.Three people debating the Ptolemaic and Copernican
models. The Aristotelian wins, but his arguments are obviously inferior. His name? Simplicio.
Also, this book was written in Italian, not Latin, so the common man could read this book. The
church was not amused.
The Inquisition forced Galileo, under threat of torture, to recant his claim that the Earth orbited
the Sun. He was placed under house arrest in 1633 and remained imprisoned until his death in
1642. Galileo’s crimes were publicly forgiven by the Catholic Church in 1992.
But, by this time the damage was done, and the Copernican model continued to gain
acceptance as the years passed. Earth’s orbit of the Sun couldn’t be proven until the unmanned
probes of the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
The fact that the Earth moves at all was proven by parallax in the 19th century From
Aristarchus belief until actual proof took over 2000 years.
Copernican principle -
Earth is not special in a cosmological sense.
The Copernican Revolution gives us an

important framework for understanding the
Universe. We do not occupy a special or
privileged place in the Universe.
The Universe and everything in it can be understood and predicted using a set of basic physical
laws (“rules

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Intellectual Revolution: The Copernican Revolution

The observation of craters and mountains on the

Figure 1the observation of sunspots showed that the Sun

The Copernican Revolution gives us an

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