Download The Copernican Revolution

Nathan Brimhall
12/8/10
Physics 1010
The Copernican Revolution
Plato 428 – 348 BC
Plato is considered to be the person who set the foundation for western philosophy and science, with
the help of his mentor Socrates and student Aristotle. He had a geocentric view of the universe which
placed the earth in the center and everything else rotated around it. (Plato, 2010)
Aristotle 384 – 322 BC
Aristotle was a student of a Plato’s and is considered, along with Plato and Socrates, to have helped lay
the foundation for western Philosophy and science. Aristotle had a unique view on motion. He had
motion broken down in to two classed Natural motion, and violent motion. Natural motion is the idea
that every object in the universe has a natural place, and the object will try to get there. If something
was made from the earth then it would fall to the earth because it wants to get back to its natural
location. He also stated that the heaver something was the faster it would fall. For example a rock would
fall faster than a feather. Aristotle also believed that the heavens and the earth had different laws. Every
natural motion on the earth was up and down but things in the heaven moved in circular motions.
Violent motions are motions from something acting on something else, like someone pushing on
something. These ideas of motion stay in acceptance for nearly two thousand years until the renaissance
and Galileo Galilei came around. Aristotle also had a geocentric view of the universe that place the earth
in the center of the universe and that the earth was not moving because it was in it natural location.
(Aristotle, 2010)
Aristarchus of Samos 310 – 230 BC
Not everyone in the ancient world believed in a geocentric universe. Aristarchus of Samos was the first
person to present a heliocentric model of the solar system. In this model he placed the sun in the center
of the solar system. He was influenced by the Pythagorean Philolaus who had talked about a “central
fire” (Aristarchus of Samos , 2010)
Ptolemy 90 – 168 AD
Ptolemy was Roman citizen living in Egypt. He was an accomplished mathematician, geographer, poet,
astrologer and astronomer. He was a contributor to both European Science and Islamic Science in the
fields of geology, astrology and astronomy. The paper he wrote on astronomy was called Almagest. This
paper contained a detailed catalog of the plants and star constellations. It could be used to track the
movement of the plants both past and future. This paper was a collaboration of the findings of prior
astronomers such as Hipparchus. This paper still used a geocentric model in which the earth is in the
center of the universe and all other things circle around it.
Almagest became widely accepted until the scientific
revolution. (Ptolemy, 2010)
The Renaissance 1300s – 1600s AD
The Renaissance was a movement was a change that started
in the 1300 AD. It was a cultural change in the way people
thought and acted. It began in Italy and then moved through The apparent movement of sun and planets with
earth as center (Almagest, 2010)
the rest of Europe. This new way of thought had affects on
many different things including art, literature, religion, philosophy, and science. There were many
influential people that came out of this time period among them are Shakespeare, Michelangelo,
Galileo, Leonardo Di Vinci, Isaac Newton, and Copernicus. (Renaissance, 2010)
The Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church was the prominent church in Europe during the Renaissance and the
Copernican Revolution. The Roman Catholic Church was a strong supporter of the geocentric theory in
which the earth was the center of the universe and everything orbited around it. The Roman Catholic
Church used the geocentric theory to explain many aspects of their religion like that God put man in the
center of the universe. (Catholic Church, 2010)
The Scientific Revolution
The Scientific Revolution was period in which there were great advances in physics, chemistry, human
anatomy, astrology and other sciences. Most people agree that the scientific revolution started in 1543
with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s book on “Revolution of Heavenly Spheres”. The scientific
revolution was significant because it was the start of people questioning commonly accepted laws and
ideas this laid the foundation for the modern science of today. The reason the scientific revolution was
able to take place was because of the ideas brought about by the renaissance movement. (Scientific
revolution, 2010)
Heliocentric
Heliocentric is the idea that the Sun is in the center of the
solar system and that the planets rotate around it. This
concept was first introduced by Aristarchus of Samos in the
200s BC. Heliocentric ideas were not accepted until after the
16th and 17th century. The reason that it was so hard for
people to accept this concept was because of the Roman
Catholic Churches view on the universe and the earth being
at the center. It was not until the findings of Nicolaus
Copernicus that the geocentric idea was questioned.
(Heliocentrism, 2010)
Heliocentrism (lower panel) in comparison to the
geocentric model (upper panel) (Heliocentrism,
2010)
Geocentric
Geocentric is the idea that the earth is the center of the universe and that everything revolves around it.
Geocentric gets it start back in the 300s BC form the philosopher Aristotle and Plato. The Geocentric
view was accepted practice up until the 1500s when Nicolaus Copernicus published his book The
Revolution of Heavenly Spheres. The Roman Catholic Church was a huge supporter of the geocentric
idea and had base a lot of doctrine around the idea. One problem with a geocentric system is that you
can’t explain the paths of other planets in our solar system with circular orbits. The orbits of the planets
in our solar system were explained with an abnormal orbit. In which the path of the planets curled
around on themselves as the orbited the earth. (Geocentric model, 2010)
Nicolaus Copernicus 1473 – 1543
Nicolaus Copernicus was the first person to present the idea that the earth and the other planets were
orbiting around the sun, and back it up with observations. Nicolaus Copernicus formulated the idea of a
moving earth because it was the simplest way to explain the paths that the planets took as the moved
through the sky. Nicolaus Copernicus was afraid to let anyone know about his findings for two reasons.
One is that he feared persecution, and second he was not completely certain that he believed himself. It
was not until he was near his death that he finally shared this information in a book The Revolution of
Heavenly Spheres, he saw his first copy on the day of his death in 1543. This paved the way for other
great thinker to fallow and expand. (Hewit, 2010)
Tycho Brahe 1546 – 1601
Tycho Brahe was an astronomer that did not believe in a geocentric system. Tycho set up a research lab
in Hven that he used to observe the night sky. In the last year of his life he was assisted by a man named
Johannes Kelper. (Tycho Brahe, 2010)
Johannes Kelper 1571 – 1630
Johannes Kelper was an astronomer that worked under Tycho Brahe
in the last year of his life. Kelper was an influential person in the
scientific revolution and is credited for laying the foundation for
Isaac Newton’s work on universal gravitation. Kelper developed the
Laws of Planetary Motion, which explained in four laws the motion
of the planets.
1.
2.
3.
4.
The planetary orbit is a circle
The Sun is in the center
The speed of the planet in the orbit is constant
The square of the sidereal period is proportionate to the
cube of the distance from the Sun.
Heliocentric coordinate system (r, θ) for
ellipse. Also shown are: semi-major axis a,
semi-minor axis b and semi-latus rectum
p; center of ellipse and its two foci marked
by large dots. For θ = 0°, r = rmin and for θ
= 180°, r = rmax. (Kepler's laws of
planetary motion, 2010)
Galileo Galilei 1564 – 1642
Many people consider Galileo to be the single most important person in the history of science. Galileo
used a telescope and Copernicus’s book to support the Copernican model of the universe. Galileo
published his findings about how Venus had phases like our moon and that Jupiter had it own moon
orbiting it. After this publication Galileo was contacted by the pope of the Roman Catholic Church and
told to take back his statements. Fearing for his life Galileo retracted his statements only to later
republish his finding with more evidence to support him. Again the church forced Galileo to retract his
statements and he was placed under house arrest until he died. The church would not admit that Galileo
was right until the year 1992. Galileo laid the tracks for another scientist Isaac Newton. (The Copernican
Revolution)
Isaac Newton 1643 – 1727
Isaac Newton was many things among them were an astronomer. He
developed an equation that he named that universal law of gravitation. He
also developed three laws of motion these three laws are.
1. First law: Ever body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion
(constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced
force. [2][3][4] This means that in the absence of a non-zero net
force, the center of mass of a body either remains at rest, or moves
at a constant speed in a straight line.
2. Second law: A body of mass m subject to a force F undergoes an
acceleration a that has the same direction as the force and a
magnitude that is directly proportional to the force and inversely
Godfrey Kneller's 1689
portrait of Isaac Newton (age
proportional to the mass, i.e., F = ma. Alternatively, the total force
applied on a body is equal to the time derivative of linear momentum 46) (Isaac Newton, 2010)
of the body.
3. Third law: The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and
collinear. This means that whenever a first body exerts a force F on a second body, the second
body exerts a force −F on the first body. F and −F are equal in magnitude and opposite in
direction. This law is sometimes referred to as the action-reaction law, with F called the "action"
and −F the "reaction". The action and the reaction are simultaneous. (Newton's laws of motion,
2010)
Law of Universal Gravitation
The law of universal gravitation is a law developed by Isaac Newton. This law states that every massive
object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe. The attraction is related to the mass of
the object and the distance between the objects. It is expressed in this formula. F=G(m1m2/r2) where F
is the force G is the gravitational constant m is the mass of the two points and r is the distance between
the two points. This law was published by Newton in 1687. (Law of Universal Gravitation, 2010)
Works Cited
Almagest. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest
Aristarchus of Samos . (2010, November). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
Aristotle. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipeda:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle
Catholic Church. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church
Geocentric model. (2010, November). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model
Heliocentrism. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentric
Hewit, P. G. (2010). Physics. St. Petersburg: Jim smith.
Isaac Newton. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
Kepler's laws of planetary motion. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_motion
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation
Newton's laws of motion. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikiapedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion
Plato. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
Ptolemy. (2010, November). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy
Renaissance. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
Scientific revolution. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution
The Copernican Revolution. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2010, from Peter Russel:
http://www.peterrussell.com/Reality/RHTML/R11.php
Tycho Brahe. (2010, December). Retrieved December 2010, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe