COPERNICUS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 507.

Reading passage

What do you think?

PHYSICS – THE ORIGINS

Do you agree or disagree with Aristotle's view that ‘knowledge came from what we understood with our senses'?

Have people always believed that the Earth goes round the Sun?

Why do you think people would doubt this?

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543) a Polish astronomer, provided the first modern theory of a heliocentric, that is a sun-centered, solar system. Nowadays we might find it hard to believe anything different from the idea that the Earth travels round the sun, but in Copernicus' day, a time when people were sure the Earth had to be the most important planet, as it had been created by God, it was believed that the sun went around the Earth. Copernicus held many important positions and studied in many fields, including maths and astronomy. Obviously a great man, he came up with perhaps one of the most important scientific hypotheses in history. Moreover, his ideas led the way for science to question theories already held. He called into question Aristotle's view that knowledge came from what we understood with our senses. Copernicus argued that a scientific law need not be overly concerned with appearance. This concept: brought about a scientific revolution.

So let us consider in more detail what Copernicus was hypothesising in his heliocentric theory. Well, there were seven parts to his theory. These were: Firstly, the universe does not have one centre. Secondly, the Earth is not the centre of the universe. Thirdly, any centre of the universe is near the Sun. Fourthly, the distance from the Earth to the Sun is nothing if you compare it to the distance from the Earth to the stars. Fifthly, the fact that the Earth revolves explains why the stars also revolve. Sixthly, the apparent movement of the sun is caused by the Earth revolving around the sun and finally, the apparent backward motion of the planets is caused by the motion of the Earth, from which they are observed. Other pieces of knowledge we now take for granted are also due to Copernicus' research; he gave the correct order of the known planets; and he showed why we had seasons.