Copernicus and Kepler: A New View of The Universe: Geocentric Theory
Copernicus and Kepler: A New View of The Universe: Geocentric Theory
The Scientific Revolution began with the work of the Polish astronomer
Nicolaus Copernicus. His work led to a new view of the universe.
For nearly two thousand years, most people believed that Earth was the
center of the universe. According to this geocentric theory, the sun, stars,
and planetseverything believed to be the universetraveled around a
motionless Earth. Aristotle had taught this theory. The Bible seemed to support
it, as well. In one Bible story, God stops the sun from moving across the sky. The
geocentric theory also seemed to make obvious sense. After all, the sun and
stars do look like they travel around Earth.
Aristotle had also taught that all heavenly bodies move in circles. Unfortunately,
this belief made it hard to explain the observed movements of planets, such as
Mars and Jupiter. In the 2nd century C.E., Ptolemy created a complicated theory
to account for this.
Both ancient and medieval writers, including Muslim scientists, pointed out
problems with Ptolemys theory. In the early 1500s, Copernicus tackled these
problems. Using observations and mathematics, he proposed a very different
idea. According to his heliocentric theory, Earth and the other planets
travel in orbits around the sun. The sun is at the center of this solar system.
Earth also turns on its own axis every 24 hours. This turning explains why
heavenly objects seem to move around Earth.
Like Ptolemy, Copernicus had trouble predicting the movement of planets with
perfect accuracy. Still, he thought his theory was simpler and more satisfying
than Ptolemys. In 1543, he published a book describing his idea. The book
convinced very few people. Some Church officials and scientists attacked it.
Then, in the early 1600s, German scientist Johannes Kepler expanded on
Copernicuss theory. After studying detailed observations, Kepler figured out
that the orbits of the planets were ovals, not circles. With this insight, he wrote
precise mathematical laws describing the planets movements around the
sun.
Keplers laws agreed beautifully with actual observations. This agreement was
evidence that the Copernican theory was correct. Once the theory took hold,
people would never again hold the same view of Earths place in the universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus
Geocentric Model
Johannes Kepler
Heliocentric Model
Law of
Gravity
Principia
Rene Descartes
Francis Bacon
Key Inventions
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The Scientific Revolution spurred the invention of new tools for studying the
world. These tools, such as the telescope, helped scientists discover new facts
and measure data more accurately.
MicroscopeScientists use microscopes to make small objects appear
much larger. The microscope was invented by Dutch lens makers in the
late 1500s. In the mid-1600s, Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (LAY
venhook) designed his own powerful microscopes. He became the first
person to see bacteria. Leeuwenhoek was amazed to find a tiny world of living
things. He exclaimed, "All the people living in our United Netherlands are not so
many as the living animals that I carry in my own mouth this very day! "
BarometerAnother important tool developed in this period was the barometer. A
barometer measures changes in the pressure of the atmosphere.
Evangelista Torricelli (tawrihCHELee) invented the barometer in the
1640s. He filled a glass tube with a liquid metal called mercury. Then he placed
the tube upside down in a dish.
Over the next few days, Torricelli watched the tube. He saw that the height of the
mercury did not stay the same. The column of mercury moved up and down as
the pressure in the atmosphere changed. The barometer soon proved to be a
valuable tool in studying and predicting the weather.
ThermometerGalileo likely made the first thermometer. In the early 1700s,
however, a German scientist, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, made
thermometers more accurate. He put mercury in a glass tube. As the mercury
grew warmer, it expanded and rose up the tube. The height of the mercury
provided a measure of temperature. Fahrenheit also designed a new
temperature scale. In the United States, we still measure temperature using
Fahrenheit degrees.
Telescop
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Baromet
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Microscop
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Thermomet
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